What Is Magic?
by lightningmaystrike
Summary: Jane Rizzoli discovers an interesting phenomenon occurring at the Boston Four Season Hotel. Married couple Emma Swan and Regina Mills take a week long romantic getaway vacation to Boston. Magic and mystery ensue.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I was really trying to keep myself to focusing on one story at a time, but I couldn't get this idea out of my head. For the Rizzoli & Isles universe, the story takes place fairly soon after Jane finds out she is pregnant, so around the current episodes. For the OUAT universe, this is an AU where Emma and Regina are already married and Henry is in high school, so a few years in the future from where the show is at now. I hope you enjoy this slightly ridiculous but hopefully hilarious and entertaining story. I haven't gotten too far on outlining it, but I think it will be a lot of fun because I love Rizzles/Swan Queen cross overs hehe

* * *

Jane Rizzoli was running. Running until she could no longer breath. Running until she felt as if her lungs would explode. It was dark and pouring rain, and no sane person would go for a run alone at this time of night, but she just needed to escape. She needed some time to herself to think and process everything that was happening. How could she be pregnant? How could she raise a child? How could she do this alone with Casey overseas? Why had she decided breaking up with Casey was a good idea anyways, maybe if he knew about the baby he would change his mind and decide not to ship out. Deep down, she knew this wasn't true. Deep down she knew he never really cared about her and her needs the way he should have. She knew his love for her had always been selfish, and ultimately this knowledge is what led her to stick to her decision of splitting despite her newly discovered pregnancy.

She thought about Maura's offer. The offer to be involved, to be a partner and supporter throughout this new journey. To as Maura put it 'be part of the village that would be needed to raise this child'. Tears stung Jane's eyes as she thought of how grateful she was to have Maura in her life, but she also felt a sense of dread. Agreeing to Maura's proposition, allowing her to be a partner in parenting this child, would blur the lines of their relationship even further away from just friendship than they already were. Her relationship with Maura was already complicated enough for her, although she understood that Maura probably didn't see it that way or even realize the complications existed. Throughout her relationship with Casey, Jane had constantly felt herself overcome with guilt. If she was spending time with Maura, she felt like she was cheating on Casey. If she was spending time with Casey, she felt like she was cheating on Maura. This made absolutely no sense to her, as her relationships with Maura and Casey were completely different and separate. Maura was just her friend. Her best friend. Whereas Casey was her boyfriend, the man she was in love with. But she often wondered what the difference was. Shouldn't the person she was in love with be the same person who was her best friend? Shouldn't the person that she wanted to spend every minute with and always confide in be the same person she was supposedly in love with?

Jane had never voiced any of these questions to anyone, so she knew Maura was not aware of her feelings. She feared now though, that with Casey out of the picture, and Maura taking an even more important role in her and her child's life, she would not be able to fight the feelings she had not realized she had for Maura, and that thought terrified her. It didn't help that Angela Rizzoli, the ever-present helicopter mother, had decided to temporarily move in to her apartment to "help out with any pregnancy needs". With her mother constantly at her side, asking questions and fussing over her wellbeing, Jane found she barely had any time to herself lately to really work out her own feelings about her situation. Her mother had not been happy that she had left the apartment to go running at 11:00 at night, but when Jane lied and told her she was meeting up with her brother Frankie, Angela had let it go realizing it was good for Jane to spend time with some other people. This was a time when Jane was forever grateful to her brother for always having her back. All it took was a quick text as she ran out the door for her to know he would back her story if her mother ever asked him about it tomorrow.

With all these thoughts still whirling through her mind, Jane collapsed down on a bus stop bench across from the Boston Four Seasons. She had been hoping to be able to run her usual loop around the city without stopping to rest, but it seemed this pregnancy thing was having an adverse affect on her endurance. As she sat on the bench trying to catch her breath, she gazed out across the street at the tall imposing building of the hotel. Most of the lights in the rooms were off by this time as the Boston visitors began to turn in for the night.

Suddenly, something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. A bright white light seemed to be gently pulsing in one of the second floor rooms. She couldn't see what the source of the light was as the curtains of the room were closed, but she trusted her instincts enough to know there was something strange about it. Then quite suddenly, the white light exploded like a bomb, filling the whole room, and then the room went completely dark.

"What the hell?" Jane said out loud as she jumped up off the bench, and found herself running across her street towards the hotel. In her gut, she knew it wasn't a bomb, as there was no sound accompanying the explosion, and there seemed to be no physical damage to the hotel. However, she still ran forwards feeling the need to investigate. Whatever had made the explosion would surely be dangerous, and she was determined to figure out what it was.

* * *

**13 hours earlier**

Emma Swan was in the driveway of 108 Mifflin Street bodily lifting a large suitcase into the trunk of an expensive black Mercedes. A black Mercedes Benz belonging to one Mayor Regina Mills to be specific.

"Jesus Regina, what did you put in here?" she called out to her wife who had just stepped out the front door and was now locking up the house.

"Oh, just some essentials, why?" she asked putting on her most innocent face.

"Because, your suitcase probably weighs more than I do," replied the blonde with a huff as she slammed the trunk closed and leaned back on it for a moment to catch her breath after the physical exertion. Regina just chuckled as she made her way over to the driver's side door of the car.

"What? Is loading up the suitcases to much work for you Sheriff?" she teased, "Are you feeling a little out of shape lately?"

"Haha very funny," Emma answered sarcastically, "I will have you know I am in the best shape ever," she continued, "Just yesterday, I took down Little John while breaking up a bar fight. Tackled him right down to the ground."

Little John was one of Robin Hood's Merry Men, and was anything but little. He actually reminded Emma a lot of the giant she and Hook had battled a few years ago back in the Enchanted Forest. Regina raised her eyebrows with a smirk.

"Impressive."

"Yeah, seriously," Emma laughed, "anyways shall we head out?"

"I suppose we should, I would hate to waste our whole first day driving."

The two women then climbed into their respective seats, slamming the car doors shut behind them. Regina turned her keys in the ignition, and with one last glance back at the Mayor's Mansion, the Benz pulled out of the driveway and sped off down Mifflin Street. For a few minutes they road in silence, as Emma messed around with the controls on the car's radio. When she finally found a station she approved of (an oldies classic rock station) she sat back relaxing into her seat, eyes closed, and let out a sigh.

"Do you realize this will be our first time away from Storybrooke with just the two of us since our honeymoon?" she asked.

"Indeed," the Mayor agreed, "I feel we are extremely overdue for this trip. How have we allowed an entire two years to pass without allowing ourselves a little couples retreat?"

"Hey, I remember proposing the idea multiple times in the past, but you never wanted to leave Henry," Emma defended.

"Well can you really blame me?" Regina asked glancing over at her wife. "I mean after all we have been through, don't you agree that we really needed all the time we could get to just be together and be a family?"

"You're right," the Sherriff conceded, softening. She knew being away from their son Henry was difficult for Regina, especially since Neverland. She remembered having to fight tooth and nail for Regina to agree to go on their honeymoon without bringing Henry along. In the end they had compromised, spending the first week in Paris alone, and then meeting up with Henry and her parents for a family tour of Europe.

"Do you think Henry will be alright?" Regina voiced softly, giving into her fear and vulnerability in a way she only ever let Emma see.

"Henry will be completely fine," the blonde reassured, "He is a big kid now Regina, he can take care of himself. He's in high school, and I like to think he has learned how to be responsible. I mean you seem to be fine with him driving himself all over the place, so I think we can trust him to be away from us for one week. Plus you know my parents will keep an eye on him. They won't let him blow up the house or hold any ruckus parties."

"Maybe we should have had him go stay with them while we were gone…" Regina mused.

"Regina, we've been over this. He's 16 years old, he doesn't need to be baby sat by his grandparents while we're gone. He agreed to call us every night to check in, so I think you can allow yourself to relax. He understands that we sometimes need some time to ourselves; he's not upset we left him home, and he's a good kid. He won't get into trouble while we're gone."

"I believe you, I just can't help myself from worrying," Regina gave her a soft smile; her eyes slightly clouded over with unshed tears.

"I understand." Emma reached over to squeeze her wife's free hand. "Just don't worry to much, because I have too many awesome things planned for this week for you to have time to worry," the blonde grinned across the small space.

"I'm sure you do dear," Regina finally allowed herself to chuckle. "So tell me, what exactly are we going to be doing in Boston for an entire week? You know, even though you lived there for a few years, I have still never been."

"That my darling is still a surprise," Emma sassed.

"Oh come on, I waited until the day of the trip to ask, you might as well tell me now."

"Nope, I want everything to be a new and unexpected experience for you. It will be fun. We're expanding your horizons, because as many years as you have lived and as many crazy things as you have seen, you still have been extremely sheltered while in this world. Plus it will be fun to be able to show you all my favorite places, it will just be more fun if you don't know what to expect," Emma grinned mischievously.

"Fine have it your way," Regina huffed, feigning annoyance. Emma just laughed in response before leaning over to place a gentle kiss on the Mayor's cheek.

* * *

By 1:00 pm, Regina was pulling the Benz into the parking lot of the Boston Four Seasons. She quickly made her way inside to the front desk to check into their room while Emma unloaded their luggage. They settled into their room, allowing themselves an hour to rest, before heading out on what Emma deemed "their first adventure". They spent the next few hours exploring the New England Aquarium, which as Emma predicted, was full of beautiful amazing creatures that Regina had never seen before in her life. It was the perfect day, and Emma loved spending the time watching her wife marvel at the beautiful mysteries of this world. Around 7:30 they caught their dinner reservation at Emma's favorite romantic restaurant.

The Sherriff was extremely proud of herself by the time they got back to the hotel for the night. She had successfully executed an amazing bonding day with her beautiful wife in which Regina was to distracted by all the fun they were having to remember to worry about Henry. As they were letting themselves back into the room, Henry called Regina's cell phone. Emma was happy to wander around the hotel room organizing their things and getting herself ready for bed. She listened to Regina talk excitedly to their son, asking about his day and telling him all about the cool things they saw at the aquarium. When she was finished with her conversation, Regina dutifully passed to phone to Emma and lovingly watched her as she checked in with Henry and told him goodnight.

After carefully placing the phone down on the bedside table, Emma made her way over to the former queen, who was stretched out on the bed, laying on top of the covers still wearing her power suit.

"Come here," Emma said in a low voice, reaching out to grasp Regina's hands and pulling her up off the bed. "I think," she said once Regina was standing in front of her, moving forward so there was barely any space between them, "we should take advantage of the fact that we are here alone and don't have to worry about our son overhearing anything, if you know what I mean," she continued, in her best seductive voice.

"Oh really, you think so?" replied the Mayor, raising her eyebrows and trying not to chuckle at her wife's adorable attempt at being sexy.

"mmmhmm," Emma responded, her hands now grasping Regina's upper arms as she leaned in for a soft kiss. "We can be as loud as we want tonight, and I plan to make you scream."

Regina chuckled, "not if I make you scream first dear." She recaptured Emma's lips in her own, deepening the kiss. Enjoying the feel of the Savior's tongue sliding against her own, the Mayor allowed her hands to roam Emma's body, finding their way under her tight white tank top. She felt soft hands working to unbutton her shirt as they both leaned even deeper into the kiss, allowing it to heat up. Sooner than she would like to admit, Regina found herself lying back on the bed, Emma lying flat on top of her. All of their clothing had disappeared, and they pressed close against each other, moaning into the heated kisses, hands caressing every inch of exposed skin. Then Regina noticed the white light beginning to emanate from their bodies as Emma moved to kiss her neck.

"Dammit," she muttered through labored breaths, "Magic."

"You know babe," Emma said between continued kisses, "If you were serious about the whole not doing magic here thing, we probably should have practiced controlling it a little more. I personally don't think we could prevent this even if we tried."

"You're probably right. I just hoped we wouldn't have to take the risk of someone noticing it."

Magic during love making was not a new thing for them. The combination of them both having powerful magic, their magic being boosted when they touch, and their true love creating magic of its own, made their sexual encounters inevitably explosive. This had been a bit of a problem when they first started their relationship. To say it was embracing that the entire town of Storybrooke could tell when they were having sex due to the huge explosion of light it caused was an understatement. Regina had tried to come up with a spell to block the light, but it seemed their magic was just too powerful and always broke through the barrier. They ended getting extremely thick black curtains to black out the windows of their bedroom and sometimes Regina's office to prevent anyone seeing the light show. Unfortunately the curtains of this hotel room were white and not very thick, so all they could do was hope no one walked by the window of their room.

"Regina, no one is going to be outside looking at our window at this time of night. It will be fine, just relax."

"Alright, I hope you're right," Regina replied, allowing herself once more to give into the sensations,

"I love you Emma."

"I love you too Regina."

The white light of their magic continued to pulse gently as they made love. When they finally climaxed one after the other, the light exploded as they had come to expect, and dissipated, leaving the room in complete darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Yes I'm posting two chapters in one day haha I'm just really excited about this story :)

* * *

Emma and Regina lay silently in bed snuggled closely together underneath the covers, allowing their breathing to even out again. Emma gently continued to pull her fingers through Regina's hair as Regina's head rested on her chest.

"I think this is the best day I've had in quite a while," Regina said quietly, stroking her fingers lightly across Emma's collarbone and shoulder. "Thank you for insisting on this trip."

"It was a pretty amazing day wasn't it?" Emma sighed.

"I can't wait for whatever adventure you have up your sleeve for tomorrow," Regina giggled.

Emma chucked, "yeah," she sighed again, completely content to fall asleep curled around her amazing and beautiful wife.

* * *

A while later Emma had already drifted off to sleep when Regina heard a soft knocking on the door of their room.

"Psst, Emma," she whispered, trying to shake the blonde awake.

"huh whuu?" Emma mumbled groggily.

"Did you hear that?" Regina whispered back, "I think someone is at the door."

"What? I didn't hear anything," the Sherriff grumbled, but then there was another pounding on the door, louder this time, and Emma went into panic mode.

"Who the hell is at the door at this time of night?" she whispered frantically to Regina.

"Seriously, I have no idea. Let's just ignore it and pretend we're asleep."

Then they heard the pounding again, only this time it was accompanied by someone shouting.

"Hey! It's the police, open up. I know you're in there so either you open the door or I break it down."

"Jesus Christ Regina, why are the police at our door? You're car isn't like stolen or something is it?"

"What? What the hell are you talking about, of course my car isn't stolen. That would be _your_ car if I recall correctly."

"Then why are there police pounding on our hotel room door?" the frantic whispered conversation continued.

"I don't know, but I'll take care of it. Just stay here." Regina quickly got out of bed and grabbed her rob, which Emma had already hung up in the bathroom for her, before continuing to the door. Once she ensured she was fully covered by the robe, she opened the door just enough to reveal herself but not give a good view into the room.

"What can I do for you… Officer" she asked coldly as she took in the site of a tall lanky brunette dressed in running leggings and a t-Shirt that said "Property of Boston PD" across the front.

"Is everything all right in here?" the stranger asked, trying to peer past Regina into the room.

"Yes, everything is completely fine," Regina replied, keeping her face unreadable.

"Are you sure?" the tall brunette asked, looking slightly confused.

"I'm positive. Now are you an actual police officer, or are you just enjoying keeping me from my beauty sleep?"

"Oh right," the tall woman answered, looking slightly awkward. "I uhh don't actually have my badge on me right now because I'm technically off duty, but I just thought I saw something suspicious in here. Sorry to bother you."

"Yes well, if you are quite finished wasting my time, I would like to get back to bed. My wife awaits me," Regina replied, her voice cold as ice.

"All right, I guess I'll leave then," said the woman turning to go, but just as Regina began to close the door the stranger suddenly stopped, turning back towards her.

"Wait a second, umm you guys weren't like using a strobe light or something in here earlier were you?" She asked.

"What? No." Regina replied, trying to arrange her facial feature to look appropriately baffled by the question. "Why would you suggest that?"

"Oh, it's nothing, I just thought I saw something weird. Anyways, uhh if you see anything suspicious around here, would you give me a call? My name is Jane Rizzoli and I'm a detective at the Boston Police Department. You can just look up their number and they'll put you through to me."

"Fine," Regina agreed, anxious for the conversation to be over so the detective would leave.

"Ok, well thanks again, I'm sorry if I interrupted anything." Jane just now seemed to be noticing Regina's state of dress.

"Yes, well goodnight Detective," she replied, and promptly closed the door.

"What did she want?" Emma asked as Regina made her way back to the bed. Emma had been watching the exchange from where she sat, but they were speaking quietly enough that she hadn't been able to catch much of the conversation.

"Some Detective Rizzoli from Boston PD," Regina answered with a sigh, "I'm assuming she saw the magic. She said she noticed suspicious activity and then asked if we had been using a strobe light. I guess we will have to be a bit more careful next time."

"I'm surprised she didn't want to search the room if she already thought there was suspicious activity," Emma stated, looking relieved that she hadn't.

"I don't think she could have without our permission," the Mayor responded, "She was off duty and didn't even have her badge with her. I'm pretty sure it was against the rules for her to even pound on our door yelling that it was the police, but I'm not going to do anything about it because that would just attract more attention to us."

"Ahh," Emma noted in understanding, "wait, why was an off duty cop here at this time of night anyways?"

"I don't know, she said she was on a run, although why anyone would go running alone this late, cop or not, I have no idea," Regina explained with another sigh. "Let's just go to sleep and hope we never hear from our dear detective again."

"Alright. Thanks for handling that, I don't think I could have pulled it off so calmly."

"Which is exactly why I got up. It's no problem though, we both know lying is unfortunately something I'm extremely good at doing under pressure."

"Yeah… I knew that would come in handy some day," Emma smiled, "Now let's get some rest. I love you."

"I love you too. Good night Emma."

"Night," the blonde grunted, having already turned onto her stomach and buried her face into her pillow.

Regina slid under the covers beside her wife, and within minutes they were both sound asleep.

* * *

Jane ran back across the street, deciding it was time to get home. While she couldn't see anything extremely suspicious about the woman who had answered the door of the hotel room, she had a strange feeling in her gut. Jane was an experienced detective, and was very good and knowing when someone was hiding something, and the beautiful brunette she had just spoken to was definitely hiding something, as skilled as she might be at putting on an act. Jane just knew something wasn't quite right, but she had no idea what it might be.

When she got back home, she crept quietly back into her apartment, knowing her mother would already be asleep on the couch. She quickly got ready for bed and tried not to think too much about the mysterious light explosion in an attempt to actually get some sleep.

* * *

The next morning, Jane sat absentmindedly spinning around in an office chair in the morgue while she waited for Maura to finish the autopsy.

"Jane please be careful," Maura called over to her, "I would really rather you not throw up all over my floor, and I know the dead body smell already makes you nauseous with all your pregnancy hormones acting out."

"Hey, do you think it's possible for a strobe light to explode?" Jane asked, completely ignoring Maura's comment and continuing to spin around in the chair.

"What?" Maura replied bewildered by the sudden turn of their conversation, "I don't know Jane, I supposed it could be possible. Why are you asking?"

"Oh, no reason," Jane answered, then after a pause she asked, "How big would you expect the explosion to be if a strobe light were to explode? Like could it fill an entire hotel room with crazy white light?"

"Probably not" Maura responded, "although I really have no idea why you are thinking about this."

"Just curious…" came the cryptic response. Jane had decided not to tell anyone about what she had seen the night before until she had more information. She was beginning to think more and more that maybe her mind had been playing tricks on her and made the whole thing up as some strange result of her pregnancy brain. That did not stop her from continuing her own little investigation in secret though just incase she was right after all, because even if the exploding light thing wasn't real, she was still one hundred percent sure there was something fishy going on in the hotel room.

"Can you think of anything that would cause a pulsing white light to become a giant explosion of white light? Does that sound like anything you know of that exist?"

"Jane," came Maura's exasperated reply, "I really have no idea what you're talking about. I have never heard of an exploding white light, unless you are talking about a supernova, but there is no possible way to fit a supernova in a hotel room as the smallest a star can be to become a white dwarf is 8 times the mass of the sun, which would be approximately 1.59x10^31 kg."

"Could someone like create a smaller model of a white dwarf though?" Jane asked, still seemingly lost in her own little world.

"Not at this time," Maura informed, "but really Jane, why this line of questioning? Does this have to do with the case? Because I think it's highly improbable that John Doe here was killed by a supernova."

"No, it doesn't have to do with the case Maura. Let's just say I'm working on a little research project. Anyways, I gotta go now, I just had an idea," Jane exclaimed, jumping up out of the chair and hurrying out of the morgue, leaving Maura to stare after her wondering what the hell had just happened.


	3. Chapter 3

"Jane! Why are you acting all antsy? And why couldn't we go over to Maura's for dinner tonight? You know she always invites us Tuesday nights, and we haven't missed it in two years! Are you two fighting again?"

As usual, Angela Rizzoli was interrogating her daughter over dinner, and this time Jane needed to think fast to come up with a good excuse for why she blew Maura off.

"You know Ma, nothing was stopping you from going to Maura's. I just said _I _couldn't go," she huffed, frustrated at her mother's nosiness that would undoubtedly make her mission much more complicated than it had to be.

"But why on earth couldn't you go to Maura's? Is everything all right between you two? Because I swear I don't think I can handle having my two favorite daughters fighting again, it was painful enough when you shot her father," Angela replied.

"No Ma, we're not fighting, I just have somewhere I need to be," said Jane checking her watch for what seemed like the hundredth time that evening.

"Where on earth would you be going at 6:00 at night if not to Maura's?" exclaimed Angela impatiently.

"I have a date ok? Now can you please just butt out of my life for like two seconds? I have to go get ready." Jane stormed out of the kitchen in frustration.

"Are you sure you should be going on dates right now?" Angela asked as she annoyingly decided to follow Jane into her bedroom, "I mean you just broke up with Casey, and you're pregnant. Maybe you should take a break from dating until the baby comes. Plus, you already ate dinner, what the heck kind of date is it gonna be if he doesn't even buy you dinner?"

"Fine Ma, you caught me. I'm not going on a date," said Jane in resignation, "but I really can't tell you what I'm doing right now until I have more information ok? So can you please just mind your own business?"

"Is this for work? Are you doing some big undercover bust? Please be careful Jane, you know I worry about you extra now that you're breathing for two!"

"Yea, I guess you could say it's kind of under cover… more like under the radar, but that's besides the point. I'm sorry you worry about me, but trust me, I don't think what I'm doing tonight will be dangerous, but I really do have to get going now."

"Ok, well good luck! Hope you catch them!" Angela called after her as Jane was finally able to rush herself out the door.

As soon as Jane was gone, Angela picked up her phone with one number in mind.

"Good evening Angela!" came the answer from the other end of the line. "I was disappointed you and Jane couldn't make it to dinner, is everything all right?"

"Maura! Everything is just fine, but that's actually why I wanted to call you. Do you know anything about this undercover assignment Jane is working on tonight?"

"Undercover assignment?" Maura inquired sounding slightly bewildered.

"Yes, she left about five minutes ago in a big rush. First she pretended she was going on a date, but when I wouldn't believe that she said she had some top secret under cover assignment. I thought you might have more information, 'cause you know, she doesn't really like to talk to me about work stuff."

"I'm sorry Angela, but I really had no idea about any such assignment. I wonder if that's why she was asking me all those strange questions earlier today…" Maura mused, more to herself than for Angela's benefit.

"So you really don't know anything about it?" Angel pried, "I find it hard to believe they would be working on a case over there that you don't know about…"

"Yes it is quite strange isn't it," Maura replied mater-of-factly, "I can certainly ask Jane about it tomorrow if that would make you feel better. She might be able to tell me what's going on even if she can't tell you."

"Would you do that for me? It's just that I worry about her."

"Yes, no problem Angela. I'll let you know what I find out tomorrow."

"Alright, well have a good evening, I missed seeing you."

"You too. Bye Angela."

* * *

Jane sat on the same bus stop bench across from the Boston Four Seasons that she had the night before while resting from her run, only this time she was planning to camp out and set up surveillance. She realized if she was wrong and all were innocent here that setting up unauthorized police surveillance on a hotel room was nothing short of creepy, so she was inwardly praying that her efforts of the night would be fruitful. It was now 8:00 in the evening, and she had been sitting on the bench for close to two hours, but the lights remained determinedly off in the hotel room. She was hoping to catch sight of the mysterious brunette who resided there when she returned to the hotel after being out and about during the day. At least Jane assumed she would be returning to the room. Earlier she had talked to the man at the front desk and he told her the room wasn't supposed to be checked out from until Friday morning, so unless the residents had merely stayed in the hotel all day, Jane thought she had a good chance of sighting them on their way back in. She just hoped she hadn't missed them after having been held up by her mother. She was getting a bit bored and apathetic when a black Mercedes drove past her and turned into the hotel parking lot.

"Wow, nice car," she muttered to herself as she sat up a little straighter on the bench trying to get a better look. Once parked with precision, the driver and passenger side doors opened, and a short haired brunette accompanied by a slightly shorter blonde woman got out of the car with their backs turned to Jane. She realized the height difference between them was mostly due to the brunette's four inch high heals, and chuckled to herself thinking that she had only ever seen Maura pull those off as gracefully. The blonde woman was walking around the front of car, and as she turned to face the brunette, Jane was able to make out her features. Jane thought she looked slightly familiar, but she couldn't quite place why she recognized the face.

Suddenly, the brunette spun them around and was pushing the blonde back up against the side of the car, and Jane recognized her. It was indeed the woman she had been waiting for. She quickly took out her cell phone and snapped a picture of her face. She prayed that she would get another chance to get a picture of the blonde as well. Then the two women were kissing passionately, still pressed up against the car, and Jane's jaw dropped. _I guess she wasn't lying about having a wife then_ she thought to herself in slight disbelief at the overt public display of affection.

Unfortunately, that was far from the disbelief and dread she would feel a moment later causing her stomach to drop and her heart to beat up into her throat. The brunette woman had pulled back from the kiss and glanced up across the street, looking right at Jane. Their eyes locked, and her stare was cold and deadly. Jane knew in that moment she had been made.


	4. Chapter 4

Emma and Regina were driving back to the hotel after a lovely day visiting the Museum of Fine Arts, and then dining at another of Emma's favorite Boston restaurants.

"That was fucking hilarious when you went all Evil Queen mode on that poor parking inspector," Emma laughed, thinking back to a time earlier in the day when a young parking inspector had tried to give Regina a ticket for parking along a street where there were no "no parking" signs in sight.

"Well I'm glad you can at least find some entertainment out of my lesser qualities," Regina scoffed.

"Seriously though, how old do you think that kid was? Like 23? I think you made him pee his pants he was so scared." Emma was now crying with laughter.

"Really darling, I would prefer to have more control over my Evil Queen mode. That only happened because I lost control of my temper, and while you might find it hilarious, I actually don't really. Losing control is exactly what got me into so much trouble in the past," Regina answered tersely.

"Oh come on Regina, lighten up. You know this is completely different," Emma reassured.

"Yes, I suppose it is. You are right though; Evil Queen mode definitely can come in handy. I just wish I could only use it when I want to, and not because I lost control of my temper. Does that make any sense to you at all?" the Queen inquired.

"Yeah, I think I understand," the Savior replied, giving Regina's thigh an affectionate pat. They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Emma couldn't help herself from saying "That was pretty fucking bad ass though, and you were super sexy, so if you purposefully want to go Evil Queen mode more often I'm definitely in." Regina laughed at that, allowing herself to relax a bit.

"I'll try to keep that in mind," she replied with a smirk. They were now pulling up towards the drive into the hotel parking lot. Regina was glancing into her review mirror before signaling to pull in, when she noticed the tall figure of a woman sitting on the bus stop bench across the street. Her eyes were following the Mercedes as though she was purposefully watching them. The hairs stood up on the back of Regina's neck as she felt the eyes on her. She looked back at the mirror again to get a closer look when she realized that she recognized the woman's face. While she was now dressed in dress pants and a red V-neck instead of running cloths, Regina knew it was the detective who had come knocking at their door the night before. It had only taken her so long to realize because instead of Detective Rizzoli's hair being up in a neat ponytail, it was now down with it's long curly main framing her face. Regina gasped at the realization.

"Hey, what's the matter?" Emma asked, sensing the Mayor's sudden unease.

"It's her," Regina said in a whisper. "The detective, she's back. I think she's watching us."

"Shit, what are you gonna do?"

"Well we're not going to use magic, that's for sure," replied Regina sarcastically. Then her mouth formed into a mischievous grin. "I think it's time to practice the purposeful Evil Queen mode we were just talking about. She probably wants to verify my story that I am here on vacation with my wife, so we are going to give her a little show."

"Uhhh ok…" Emma responded unsure of what they were doing.

"Just follow my lead," said Regina calmly as she put the car in park. "She needs to believe that we don't know she's watching us yet, so get out of the car like you normally would and then come around to my side."

With that they both opened their doors and climbed out. Emma did as she was told and walked around the front of the car towards Regina.

"Now pretend like we're talking," Regina instructed.

"We are talking Regina," Emma sassed, rolling her eyes.

"Really Emma? Come on, just play along. Look over there and make sure she's still watching us, but don't make eye contact."

Emma glanced up and looked across the street. Just as Regina suspected, the tall brunette she could now see at the bus stop was indeed watching them intently.

"Wow that's the detective?" Emma inquired, "Damn, she's hot."

Regina scowled, "That is seriously the first thing you have to say about the rogue police officer who is stalking us because she may or may not have seen our magic?"

"Hey, I'm just stating the truth," Emma replied, raising her hands in surrender.

"Fine," said Regina, moving closer to Emma so their faces were inches apart, "now as I was saying, let's give her a little show." Regina raised her eyebrow seductively, still smirking, and Emma suddenly found herself spun around and pressed up against the side of the car.

"hmmm, see this is exactly why I love Evil Queen mode," she grunted as Regina pressed their bodies hard together against the cold metal. Then Regina was kissing her passionately, and Emma couldn't help but let herself get lost in the feel, taste, and smell of everything Regina Mills. When they were finally pulled apart, she found herself out of breath and panting.

"I think," she said in a low voice, "that we need to move this party back into the room." But Regina was no longer looking at her, she was giving what Emma recognized as the cold Evil Queen glare to the detective across the street, and Emma immediately realized this was an intimidation act meant to scare the detective off their case.

"Now, glance back at her, but act surprised so that she thinks we're just now noticing her," said Regina as if she hadn't heard a word of Emma's previous statement. Emma did as she was told, then turning back to Regina asked,

"Now that we're done with our little play, can we please get back to the room? I'm so turned on right now, I need this to go further."

"Sorry dear, but we can't. As long as the detective is out there watching we can't risk another magical explosion," Regina answered, her voice back to its usual softness.

"Oh right," responded Emma disappointed, "I momentarily forgot about that with all the kissing." Regina chucked at her adorable wife, as they made there way across the parking lot to the hotel building. It all would have been a very good plan to get the detective off their tail, except for one detail: Jane Rizzoli is not easy to scare off.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **For any of you reading my other story, I promise I will get back to updating The Letter of the Law either later today or tomorrow. For now though, enjoy this story, because I've been really excited about it and am having so much fun working on it. Also, thanks to all who followed, favorited, or reviewed this story, it means a lot to me.

* * *

As soon as she saw the two women enter the building of the hotel, Jane Rizzoli sprang into action. She had gotten the brunette's message loud and clear, but she wasn't going to lay off that easily. If anything it just made her even more suspicious. She opened her purse and started rummaging through it. Anyone who knew Jane personally would have found it odd that she was carrying around a purse, as she generally avoided them and all their annoyances, however, tonight she had a reason to carry one. She had come prepared and had brought a few strategically picked gadgets along with her. When she found what she was looking for, she carefully plugged the device into her phone and installed the tracking app. Then she purposefully strode across the street, looking for all the world as though she was supposed to be there, and carefully stuck the device to the underside the black Mercedes' bumper. The tracking device contained a very strong magnet, and Jane had no doubt it would be reliable in telling her exactly where the suspicious couple went from now on. Task completed, she went back over the bench to wait, in hopes that the strange light phenomenon would repeat itself.

By 1:00 am with still no sign of activity, Jane's hopes were not high. She decided that if it was going to happen tonight it would have already, and she really needed to get some sleep since she still had to work the next day. She quietly left the bench and made her way home, vowing to return again tomorrow.

* * *

"Pssst Regina, wake up." The Sherriff was curled up against Regina's right side and whispering into her ear. Regina groaned.

"Why? I was asleep," she muttered groggily, not opening her eyes.

"I know, but now your not, so let's do something," came Emma's insistent reply.

"Emma, can you please just let me sleep, why are you awake anyways? What time is it?" asked Regina opening her eyes to get her bearings.

"It's like 3 am!" exclaimed the blonde excitedly. "Which means, the detective is probably long gone now so we can have sexy time!"

"Did you seriously just wake me up at 3 am for sex?" Regina snapped grumpily. "Why the hell are you even awake?"

"I couldn't sleep," Emma complained. "I keep worrying about that stupid detective stalking us. Seriously it's creeping me out. I mean we haven't even done anything wrong… well besides doing magic outside of Storybrooke."

"Which is exactly why she is stalking us," Regina pointed out.

"Yeah, I know, I just don't like it. Can't we like call the police or something and put out a complaint. I want to be able to sleep with my wife on our romantic vacation without worrying about someone creeping outside waiting for a light show."

"Emma, you know we can't call the police. If we get more police involved, it will just draw more attention to us, and it will put Detective Rizzoli's career in danger. I know she's being annoying, but honestly I can't blame her for being curious and wanting to investigate. Believe it or not, I don't actually want to go ruining an innocent woman's career just because we were careless enough to get caught doing magic."

"Fine," grumbled Emma, "nowww can we please have sexy time?"

"No," said Regina indignantly, "you woke me from a very deep sleep and now I'm cranky. That's not sexy that's just annoying. Go back to sleep. Tomorrow we can switch hotels and hopefully throw her off our tail. Then we can have all the sexy time you want."

"OK," Emma sighed, "I love you." Then she brought her lips to Regina's in a soft kiss before resuming her position curled up into Regina's side.

"I love you too, good night Emma," Regina whispered before they both once again fell asleep.

* * *

"So," Regina started as she finished drying her hair and stepped out of the bathroom, "What do you have planned for today?"

"Well," replied Emma, who was already dressed and ready to go, "I thought today should be theatre appreciation day, so I bought us tickets through the Boston Theater for a matinee and an evening show. You know, so we can do something cultured while we're here."

"I'll have you know I'm already extremely cultured," Regina smirked, "You say that as thought you assume I've never seen live theatre before."

"Exactly," cackled Emma, "Any theatrical productions you may have seen in Storybrooke definitely don't count as quality live theatre. Or were you thinking of plays put on by your royal subjects in the Enchanted Forest to entertain their Queen?"

"Haha very funny," the Mayor replied sarcastically. " Although I'll have you know live theatre in the Enchanted Forest was actually very good."

"Oh I'm sure," sassed Emma, "Either way, it would have been completely different from say Shakespeare, which we are seeing by the way, or a musical."

"hmm, that is true, I have never seen a musical," Regina mused, "You know I'm surprised you seem to have so much experience in this department. You never struck me as the type to do fancy things like going to the theatre."

"Hey, just because I grew up in the foster system and then was a criminal turned bad ass bail bonds person doesn't mean I never tried to do anything sophisticated," Emma defended, "I've even been to the damn opera." Regina chuckled.

"You are ever full of surprises my love, however it seems our theatre adventures won't be until later this afternoon, so what are we doing right now?"

"Ahh I almost forgot. We are going to have a nice lovely relaxing morning at the spa. Today is the day I pamper you."

"See, _that_ is why I married you," Regina laughed, walking across the room to where Emma sat on the edge of the bed to lean down for a kiss.

"mmmm," Emma hummed into the kiss, "but before we do that, we have to check out of this hotel and find a new one, and then go get breakfast ok?"

"Ah yes, I did promise you we'd move hotels didn't I," Regina recalled, finally pulling back from the kiss.

"You don't think the detective will be out there watching this morning to see if we move do you?" Emma worried.

"I have no idea, although I highly doubt it. It seems to me like she is a real detective, which means unless this is her day off she actually has work to be doing during the day. Hopefully last night will be the last time we ever see her on her little side mission," Regina reassured.

* * *

Jane sat at her desk catching up on some old paperwork. It was 3:00 in the afternoon and time seemed to have slowed down as she was forced to work on the most boring part of her job. She absentmindedly pulled her phone out of the pocket of her dress pants. She had yet to check up on the whereabouts of the black Mercedes she was now tracking since it had been a fairly busy day as she and Korsak were working on documentation necessary to close up their two most recent cases. This was probably Jane's least favorite thing to do, but she knew it was also important, so she hadn't let herself get distracted. Now however, the important work was done, and she allowed herself to give into the temptation to look. Carefully glancing up to ensure Korsak was still completely focused on his paperwork, Jane opened her phone's new tracking app. A map of Boston immediately filled the screen. She examined it carefully, looking for the blinking red dot that would indicate her tracking device. Finally she found it, but the map was too large scale for her to tell exactly where in the city it was. She carefully used her thumb and pointer finger to stretch the map on her screen, zooming in on the dot. Further inspection showed that the Benz appeared to be parked on Appian Way somewhere between Mt Auburn Street and Brattle Street.

_So they're fairly close to Harvard… I wonder what they're doing…What even is on Appian Way?_ Jane wondered before she spoke out aloud.

"Hey Korsak, would it be alright if I headed out early? I've got something I need to take care of back at my apartment."

"No problem Jane," Korsak called back from where he was seated at his desk across the room. "You know baby stuff always takes precedence. Just let me know if you ever need help with anything. I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Right thanks," Jane replied, _of course he would think this has to do with the baby… at least it's a good cover story _Jane thought to herself. "See ya later Vince."

With that Jane got up and walked confidently out of the office, but instead of turning out to the main lobby to leave through the front doors, she turned towards the elevator and headed down to the morgue.

"Hey Maura," she said as she found her best friend holed up in her office, probably working on the same type of boring paper work Jane had just left.

"Jane!" exclaimed Maura, "I didn't expect to see you down here so soon. It's only 3:30, are you feeling all right? Do you need anything?"

"No no, I'm fine, you can sit back down," Jane told Maura, who had jumped out of her chair and run over to her. "I actually came down to talk to you about something. Maybe get your input or advice on a situation."

"Ahhh," said Maura, realization dawning across her features. "This wouldn't happen to be about your fake date last night would it?" she asked taking a seat once more in her desk chair.

"Really! Ma told you about that?" Jane complained exasperated.

"She might have mentioned it," Maura responded innocently. Jane heaved an annoyed sigh before allowing herself to collapse heavily onto the couch in Maura's office.

"Yes Maura," she said forcefully, "It is about the quote-end-quote fake date."

"So," replied Maura, now smiling mischievously, "what were you _actually_ doing? Because I know for sure you did NOT have an undercover mission."

"Well, I did have a mission. It just wasn't so much undercover," Jane chuckled darkly, thinking about the glare she had exchanged with the mysterious brunette driver of the Mercedes.

"Jane, just tell me what you're up to," Maura sighed, "I don't want you getting yourself into any more danger than you have to."

"Honestly, I would tell you everything, except that you wouldn't believe me, and then you would call me crazy, and then you would tell me to just leave it alone and stop investigating," Jane accused.

"I will do none of those things," Maura replied airily, "Just tell me what's going on. I want to help you." She leaned forward from where she sat to place the palms of her hands on Jane's knees, looking into her eyes in an attempt to reassure her that she would be supportive.

"All right," Jane let out a huff of air as she relaxed, "but you can't ask me to explain it because this is mostly about trusting my gut right now, and I know you don't always put much stock in what my intestines are telling me." She gave Maura a small smile, and Maura chuckled.

"Anyways," Jane continued as Maura got up from her chair and came over to sit down next to Jane on the couch, "I was out for a run on Monday night, and I saw something suspicious at the Boston Four Seasons. I can't tell you what it was just yet because, as I said before, you would never believe me. However, I have reason to believe it may happen again, so hopefully tonight you will be able to see it for yourself. After I saw this said suspicious activity, I went over to investigate, and found the room it happened in. When I knocked on the door, no one answered at first, but after yelling that I was the police and would come in whether they wanted me to or not, a woman answered the door."

"Wait a minute," Maura interrupted, "you threatened to break in when you weren't even on duty and definitely didn't even have a warrant?"

"Yes I know, it was stupid, but I needed to find out what was going on. It's not like she actually reported me or anything. Which is actually part of the reason I'm even more suspicious, because I went back last night to do some surveillance, you know just see what was going on. Only this time the same woman I talked to at the hotel room door pulled up into the parking lot while I was sitting at the bus stop watching. She definitely saw me and recognized me because she gave me this look, like daring me to mess with her. I just feel like if she were truly innocent in this situation, she would have called authorities on me, but it seems to me like she doesn't want the police to investigate things any more than I do."

"That is odd," Maura mused, deep in thought. "What exactly happened the first night, when you threatened to break down the door?"

"Oh right," replied Jane, getting back on track with her original story, "So this actually also has to do with all the questions I was asking you about the strobe lights."

"I figured," Maura indicated.

"So like I said, a brunette woman answered the door. I didn't notice right away because I was to distracted thinking about the weird thing I saw, but I'm pretty sure she was like only wearing a bathrobe. I don't know if that's important, but I felt I should mention it anyways. So first I was worried for her, since she was in the room when the strange incident happened, so I was asking if she was ok. She wasn't very happy with me, I could tell, but at first I didn't blame her because I figured I may have woken her up since it was like 11:30 at night. But as I started asking her questions, she was just really short with me, and there was just something about her. It was obvious she wanted me to leave as quickly as possible, and she had the door opened only enough so that I could see her, but not into the room. I just felt like something was really off. When I finally was leaving, she mentioned having to get back to her wife, and I automatically assumed that was her lie, you know her cover to make me not suspect her of anything. The weird thing is though, the wife part is actually the only thing that I am one hundred percent certain is true now."

"What made you think she was telling the truth about having a wife?" Maura asked, mulling all the new information over in her mind.

"Because I saw her. When I went back last night, the brunette pulled up in her car, and she and a blonde woman got out. At first I though maybe it was just an accomplice, but then they started kissing and stuff so unless it was all an act, they are definitely something more than accomplices. It felt pretty genuine though, so I don't really doubt the wife card anymore."

"You know, just because the blonde is her wife doesn't rule her out as an accomplice," Maura pointed out.

"That is definitely true," Jane grinned triumphantly.

"I still don't understand what you need my help with," Maura finally voiced.

"Well first of all, I was wondering what you thought they might be doing parked off of Appian Way by Harvard."

"There's a lot they could be doing. How do you know they're on Appian Way?"

"I may have stuck a tracking device on their car," Jane said guiltily, pulling out her phone to show Maura the map.

"Huh, I parked there just last week when I went to a show at the American Repertory Theatre. You know, the one you refused to go to see with me."

"Yeah yeah, just tell me why they would be at the theatre," Jane insisted.

"Maybe because they're just being tourists of Boston, and are actually sophisticated enough to appreciate the beauty of the theatre," Maura deadpanned.

"Hey, I can be sophisticated if I want to be," Jane defended, "Remember when I was all sophisticated at the party at Garret Fairfield's?"

"Remember when you stabbed you fish and squirted its guts all over everyone?"

"Touché. Either way, we're getting off topic. Are you done here for the day? Because I want to go investigate some more, and I want you to come with me."

"Yes, I can be done for the day," Maura chirped, clearly excited Jane had invited her to go 'out in the field' with her. So the two women heaved themselves up off the couch and made their way up to the main floor and out the front doors of the precinct arm in arm, ready for their next adventure.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Hey all you lovely readers, thanks so much for all the support and reviews :) In this chapter Jane and Maura continue their investigation adventure, and Swan Queen have a little spat. Hopefully the story will pick up the pace a bit in the upcoming chapters :) Enjoy!

* * *

"So where are we going?" Maura questioned as they clambered into her Prius. Jane had opted to drive as usual, and this time Maura did not put up a fight, just excited to be a part of the action.

"Stake out," Jane replied from the drivers seat as she adjusted the seat settings and rearview mirrors more to her liking.

"So we're just going to what, spy on their car? We don't really have much information about where they are, and the area is to large for us to search every venue ourselves." Maura looked skeptical.

"Actually, that is exactly what we're going to do," Jane said as she backed the car out of the parking spot and set off in the direction of their 'suspects'. "Here," she continued digging into her pocket as she drove and handing her retrieved cell phone to Maura, "I need you to keep an eye on the tracker app while I drive in case they leave before we get there. If their car is still in the lot when we arrive, we will stake out nearby and try to eavesdrop a little when they return to it. Hopefully we'll manage to get a little information about what they're up to. If not, then we will just continue to follow them. We have to be careful though because I've already been caught once, we can't afford to be made again or they will probably skip town, or worse report me."

"Alright, that makes sense," Maura agreed. They lapsed into thoughtful silence for a few moments.

* * *

"Hey Jane?" came Maura's soft questioning voice a while later.

"What?" Jane replied, not looking away from the road.

"You are being careful with this whole thing aren't you?" Maura's voice was worried, and unsure.

"Of course I'm being careful, I'm always careful," came Jane's defensive response.

"It's just, we don't really know anything about what's going on here. I haven't even seen this so-called explosion you're talking about, and we have no way of knowing what caused it. This could be extremely dangerous. I just want to make sure you are really thinking about what you're doing. I know you have a habit of being somewhat reckless sometimes, but you're no longer responsible for just your own life. I would never forgive myself if I allowed you to go through with this unofficial investigation and either you or the baby got hurt. I still can't believe you went investigating it on your own that first night. Did you ever think that you could have been putting yourself in extreme danger going to the hotel by yourself, while you were off duty and without all your equipment, to confront a suspect?"

"You're right, that was stupid," Jane sighed, "But that's why I brought you along this time. I promise I will be careful, and I will have you as back up from now on so I won't be confronting anyone on my own."

"Jane!," Maura almost shouted in exasperation, "What exactly am I going to do in a dangerous situation? I am not a police officer, I am not trained in combat, I can't protect you! If anything, I'm a liability and you would get injured protecting me!" Jane glanced over, and saw that now they were actually on their way Maura seemed to be getting more and more worried by the second. She hadn't really thought they would be in any danger, and Maura didn't seem worried when they originally left the precinct, but whatever was on Maura's mind now was getting her worked up.

"No Maura, you're not a cop," Jane finally voiced calmly, "You are better than that. You are a doctor. That means if anything _does_ happen to me, and I highly doubt it will, you will be there to fix me up. I know I'm safe with you, and I guarantee you we've been in more dangerous situations together before." They were silent for the rest of the drive, both knowing exactly which situations Jane was referring to, images of battles with serial killers flashing through their minds.

"Alright, we're here," Jane noted as she put the car in park and turned off the ignition. They were on the ground floor of a dimly lit parking garage. Maura handed over the phone so Jane could check the tracker.

"So, if they were at a play, it would have been an afternoon matinee," Maura explained as they crept quietly through the parking garage. "That means it would have started at 2:00 pm and will probably let out around 4:00 or 4:30. If they weren't at a play, then we have no idea where they are or when they will return to their car. Personally I'm hoping they're at the pay because that means we won't have long to wait."

"There it is!" Jane pointed excitedly having spotted the black Mercedes. Approaching the car, Jane once more dug into the pockets of her suit jacket and pulled out a small button camera. She carefully turned it on, ensuring it was wirelessly paired with her phone correctly, and then stuck it up high on the cement pillar directly across from the Benz. With that, she and Maura made their way back to Maura's car, settling back into their seats to wait. Jane pulled up an app on her phone so they could watch live feed from the camera, and turned up the volume as far as it would go.

They sat companionably in the car discussing various aspects of their life while keeping their eyes trained on the video feed. Maura asked Jane about what assistance she may need to prepare for the baby, and offered to take Jane shopping for maternity cloths when she finally began to show. Jane complained to Maura about how much more hovering her mother was doing now that she knew about the pregnancy. Jane couldn't help but feel that this, this comfort and support that she so often felt when with Maura, was how it should have felt with Casey. If she had truly been in love with him, shouldn't it have felt more like this? If he truly wanted to marry her, shouldn't he have been able to provide for her the same feeling of trust and safety that she felt with Maura? Yes, she decided. That was one of the many reasons things would not have worked out with Casey, and she found herself grateful, not for the first time, that she had decided to end their relationship.

Unfortunately though, finally accepting that what she sought out in a romantic relationship was the exact thing she already had with Maura, was throwing her for a loop. This idea of them being more, more than friends, more than colleagues, was not new to her, however she had managed to suppress it so much before and had allowed herself to use Casey as a distraction so much that she never had to fully accept her desire or even fully consider it. Now though, sitting in Maura's care on stakeout for a super secret mission, discussing such domestic things as what they would have for dinner and whether or not Jane thought Maura should turn one of her guest rooms into a nursery for the baby, Jane was hit full in the face by the strength of her feelings for the woman beside her, and knew for the first time with absolute clarity, that yes she did want more than friendship from her relationship with Maura.

"Hey Jane, did you hear anything I just said?" Maura's sharp tone yanked Jane out of her thoughts and back to the present.

"What?" she mumbled, feeling rather disoriented after her grand realization, but before Maura could rephrase her question, Jane caught sight of movement on the video feed.

"There!" she shouted excitedly, pointing at the screen, "That's the wife, that blonde. So I wonder where the brunette is…" Her question was answered seconds later when the blonde, turning to walk backwards, started shouting at someone just outside of the frame of the video feed.

* * *

Emma and Regina were returning to their parked car after having sat through their first play of the day. It was 4:15, and Emma was anxious to get moving as they had an early dinner reservation all the way on the other side of the large city. If they made good time, they would be at the restaurant by 5:00, allowing them a little over an hour to eat before they had to drive back to the theatre for the 7:00 pm evening musical they were seeing. Unfortunately, Regina did not seem to care that they were in a hurry, and was trudging along extremely slowly, the measured click-clacks of her high heals beginning to grate on Emma's nerves.

"Come on Regina, I know you can walk faster than that, even in heals. We're on a tight schedule here, and I don't want to be late for our dinner reservation."

"You know," the brunette called back from six or seven paces away, "You could have easily made a dinner reservation much closer to the theatre, and saved us a lot of time and hassle. It makes no sense to be driving that far for dinner just to have to drive right back here. Sometimes you really are just as incompetent as the rest of the Charmings."

"First of all, do you really want to pick a fight with me and bring my parents into it while we're on our supposed romantic get away?" Emma asked, now stopping in front of their car and glaring at the Mayor who was still making her way slowly but surly towards her. Regina sighed.

"No Emma, I don't want to fight. I was joking about the incompetency, I would never have married you if you were truly as much of an idiot as the rest of your family. However, I still don't understand how you thought this would be the best plan."

Regina had now reached Emma, coming to a halt a couple of feet away and crossed her arms over her chest challenging her wife to a stare down.

"I have my reasons," Emma said defensively, "For one thing, the restaurant we're going to is amazing and I wanted to make sure we went there before we go home. Secondly, if we went to dinner somewhere closer, we'd have this awkward hour or so between when this show ended, and when we'd need to be at dinner, and not really have anything to do, so to avoid that, we're doing a little extra driving."

"Really, that's you're excuse," Regina deadpanned raising her eyebrows, "I'm sure there is plenty we could have found to do until dinner, at the very least we could just wander around and check out the Harvard campus. Also we are here for the whole week, we could go to this special restaurant any other night you want. I rest my case that your reasoning is flawed." Emma just rolled her eyes.

"I have restaurants planned out for every night, that would mess things up. Come on Regina, just be a good sport for once and let me have this."

"Fine," Regina huffed in exasperation, "Now get in the car, or we really will be late and it will not be _my_ fault."

* * *

Across the parking garage, Jane and Maura watched the whole scene play out in silence, not wanting to miss a word of the dialogue, until the black Mercedes finally pulled out of it's parking spot and drove off.

"Well that was interesting?" Maura remarked, making it sound more like a question than a statement.

"Hey, at least we have some names now. Bitchy brunette is Regina, and soft butch blonde is Emma. Not that first names alone are all that helpful though," Jane frowned.

"It sounds to me like they are really just a married couple trying to have a romantic getaway," Maura pointed out, looking carefully at Jane not wanting to put her in defensive mode.

"Yeah it does," Jane huffed out a sigh in defeat, "although there is one thing that kind of confused me. Regina mentioned some people called the Charmings, and it sounded like they were Emma's parents, but what the hell kind of a last name is Charming? I've never heard of anyone called that. I guess we could look for Maine residents who have the last name Charming…" she trailed off lost in thought again. Ideally she would just run the Mercedes' license plates through the police database, but she was trying to keep as much of this investigation away from the police station as possible and decided it would be best to try to follow a lead that did not need her police credentials. This way they could just use the internet or a phonebook which would allow their searching to not be tracked as easily.

"We could," Maura conceded, "but do you think we should? I mean it really doesn't seem like they're doing anything wrong."

"Yea I know," said Jane, "just trust me for now. We'll keep an eye on them for the rest of the day, and if nothing else suspicious happens, I'll let it go. But I'm really hoping whatever it was I saw Monday night will happen again so that you can see it, because if you do, I guarantee you'll find them just as suspicious as I do."

"I do trust you Jane, always," Maura reassured her, "If you think it's worth following them, then I trust your judgment." Then a bright smile formed on her face, "It looks like our dinner has been planned out for us, we just have to hope that the blonde has good taste in food. I don't want to end up being forced to ingest something horrible, like the Dirty Robber's giant greasy burgers." She laughed at Jane's look of indignation.

"I dunno Maura, I wouldn't be surprised if that's actually something she would consider fine dining." Jane joined in Maura's laughter.

"Maybe," Maura grinned, "although I'm not too worried. I can't imagine the tantrum that brunette would throw if they ended up driving all the way across town just for a burger." Still laughing, the detective and medical examiner were on their way, following the tracker to their suspects' next destination.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** So I recently went to an amazing production of the musical Into the Woods, and the witch's character gave me serious Regina Mills feels. Like there were so many parallels. Anyways, since I was having Emma and Regina go to a musical in Boston already, I couldn't resist using it. This was actually my favorite chapter for our Swan Queen ladies so far :)

* * *

"So, what did you think of the play?" Emma asked. She was sitting across from Regina in an elegant, dimly lit restaurant. It was her first pick restaurant to create a romantic atmosphere, and she was entranced by the way the reddish glow of the candle light lit up Regina's features as it flitted across her face.

"I will admit, while I would generally consider myself well versed in Shakespeare, I have never read A Comedy of Errors so I didn't know what to expect, but I have to say it was impressive. I generally avoided reading comedies because they always seemed so frivolous, but I have to admit this was fun." Regina smiled.

"I'm glad," Emma replied, a bright smile stretching across her face as she reached across the table to take Regina's hand in her own. "I always preferred reading comedies because I found jokes were the easiest way to cope with… everything," she trailed off slightly, as by now they both knew intimately well all the things Emma had needed to cope with in her younger years. They continued holding hands as they both perused through their menus and waited for their waitress to return to take their orders.

Once their drinks had arrived and their entrée orders were placed, Regina resumed their conversation asking Emma what musical they would be seeing later that evening.

"I know you wanted all of this to be a surprise, but I would like to know what to expect and have a brief synopsis before it starts so that I can better appreciate it," she argued before Emma could even object to her request for information.

"Well I suppose I could enlighten you," Emma teased taking a long sip from her iced tea. Regina stared back at her expectantly.

"Now don't laugh," Emma prefaced, beginning to look anxious, "and don't be mad." Regina looked at her confused.

"Why would I be mad about which musical we're seeing?"

"Because it may or may not be about fairy tale characters. I thought it would be hilarious and kind of ironic, but I also know there is a risk that you won't appreciate the humor of it, although once it starts, I guarantee you will get pulled into the story and enjoy yourself." She waited patiently to gauge Regina's reaction. She had actually decided on the show because she thought it would be interesting to find out Regina's reaction to this take on the well known stories from the Enchanted Forest, and she thought Regina would be able to relate to the struggles of the characters having lived in the Enchanted Forest for a large portion of her life. Now that she was actually faced with Regina's reaction though, she was getting a little nervous about whether or not the story might not hit too close to home. Much to her surprise, Regina's face immediately lit up with excitement.

"Are you serious?" she asked, "we're seeing Into the Woods?" In that moment the look on her face mirrored that of Henry's excitement when they had first informed him he was old enough to start driving lessons.

"Wait, have you seen it before?" Emma inquired, completely taken aback.

"Yes, many times!" Regina exclaimed still grinning, "Did you know a filmed version of the original Broadway production used to be on Netflix?"

"Really?" Emma asked curiously, "I haven't actually seen it, I just ran across a few summaries and reviews when I was researching all things fairy tale related right after the curse broke."

"You read Into the Woods reviews as fairy tale research after the curse broke?" Regina was looking at her in disbelief.

"Well yea… I did a lot of research after the curse broke," Emma said indignantly, "I needed to get as much information as I could to figure out what exactly I was up against. I mean can you blame me? My whole life was turned completely upside-down. I was just trying to catch up with the rest of you."

"You do realize that none of the stories or research you find on the Internet or in books of this world will be at all accurate in terms of what actually happened in the Enchanted Forest right?" Regina deadpanned.

"Well obviously I know that _now_," Emma complained, "I can't help that I was completely ignorant about everything back then. The only thing I had to educate me was Henry's book, and we both know how many plot holes that thing has."

"Very true," Regina agreed.

"Anyways," Emma continued, "does this mean you like Into the Woods?"

"Yes actually," Regina replied. "Of all the fairy tale stories I have come across in this world, this musical has the most complex, well rounded, and well represented characters of all of them. None of the villains are completely bad, and none of the heroes are completely good, everyone is just trying to survive as best they can and protect the people they care about. I found it to be a very accurate parallel to what really happened in the war between our families. It showed all sides of the characters, exactly opposite to what that horrid book did." Regina scowled just thinking about Henry's book.

"Awesome! Looks like I struck the jackpot with this one," Emma pumped her fist victoriously. "So tell me about it. Who is your favorite character? I want to know who to keep an eye out for, and I know that you aren't in it and snow white isn't really either, which is another reason why I thought it would be interesting to see."

"My favorite character?" Regina clarified, receiving a nod, "the witch."

"Obviously," Emma stated matter-of-factly. Regina stuck her tongue out at her, pouting, before continuing.

"I find I identify with the witch on many levels. Her dead mother casts a curse on her because she was not careful enough and allowed her neighbor to steal her family's magic beans. Instead of being angry with her mother for casting a curse on her, she decides to get revenge on the neighbor by taking his child away from him. I find the witch and I have many parallels in our stories. She raises the child of her sworn enemy as her own, and loves the child more than anything in the world. Throughout the story it is clear that she lives for the child. She also embarks on the road to redemption, as I have, having to work with her enemy's son and his family to bring down the giant, who is threatening their forest. Much like I had to work with you and your family when we fought Peter Pan. In the end, even though she loses the child she raised and every possible reason to keep fighting to be good, and even though everyone who had begun to trust her once more turns against her, she still sacrifices herself to end the battle and save them all."

At this point Emma's jaw was hanging open as she gaped at Regina. She had no idea the musical would have such strong similarities to Regina's life, and she could see how important the story was to Regina, as Regina looked back at her with the glint of tears in her eyes.

"Wow, that's … intense," she whispered across the table. When Regina just continued to stare at her she continued.

"I had no idea how similar your story would be, although I can point out two very important differences." Emma was smiling now, but her eyes were still completely serious, as she needed to convey just how sincere she was as she continued. "First of all, you did not kidnap Henry. I gave him up, and you adopted him. You him an amazing life, and he is so extremely luck to have had you all those years before we met, as you are the most amazing and loving mother I have ever met. Secondly, I know there were times on your path to redemption when we did all turn on you again, and for that I am still truly sorry, but I promise you it will never happen again. Ever. I will always believe in you now, and you will never again have to sacrifice yourself to prove your redemption to anyone. If we are ever in danger, I will have your back. If you die, it will only be because I died first protecting you." They were both rather teary eyed now as images of triggers, Neverland, and clock towers flitted through their minds.

They were suddenly interrupted by a not-so-subtle clearing of someone's throat. Their waitress had returned with their meals. The tension of their intimate moment officially broken, they accepted their food and managed to return to a normal tone of conversation.

"My point is, I love the musical, but I guarantee you I will be an emotional wreck by the end of it, so fair warning," Regina chuckled, as she removed her utensils from her rolled up napkin, spreading the napkin on her lap before beginning to twirl her fork in her pasta.

"Well based on your explanation of just one of the characters, I doubt I will fair much better," Emma replied, digging into her steak. Their conversation then lightened, and they thoroughly enjoyed their dinner together until it was time leave and once again drive to the theatre.

* * *

A few tables away, Jane and Maura had been listening in to the Swan-Mills' dinner conversation, hoping that the darkness of the restaurant would be enough to keep their cover. By the time the Sherriff and Mayor left the restaurant, Jane and Maura were more confused that ever.

"Well on the positive, it seems they are just here to go see plays and do other touristy things," Maura remarked.

"Yeah…" Jane mused, "but what the hell were they talking about the beginning. Do you think Peter Pan is a code name? And who the hell would he be that they needed to fight him? Also, what the hell is up with the so-called war/family feud Regina was talking about? Do you think they're like in the mafia or something? What do you think she has done in her past that she would need so much redemption for?" Jane was firing off questions a mile a minute, none of which Maura could answer.

"I really have no idea," she replied, a look of curiosity and wonder on her face. "You are right though, they are definitely intriguing no matter whether or not they are responsible of anything suspicious going on here in Boston."

"Also, I'm pretty sure they mentioned kidnapping someone, we should definitely look into that," Jane said pointedly.

"Oh no, I think you weren't listening carefully enough to that part," Maura replied. "The blonde specifically stated the Regina had _not_ kidnapped Henry. She adopted him, which is in no way the same." Maura found herself jumping to their defense, as adoption was something she had very strong feelings about, having been adopted herself.

"That's right," Jane replied trying to fit all the pieces together in her mind. "So they are married and have an adopted son named Henry. Do you think their child is in danger because of whatever suspicious activities they are involved with?"

"Interestingly, Emma said something about giving up Henry, which made it sound as if she might actually be his biological mother, although I can't be sure. However, I do not believe we should worry about their son yet. We still do not have any evidence whatsoever that they are even involved in anything. For all we know she could have been using the word 'war' as a figurative term, and as for fighting 'Peter Pan' we have no idea what that means. It could be a physical fight, or he could just be some sort of business rival. We really still have no information so until we find out more, we need to leave their family life alone."

"You're right," Jane sighed, "it's just all so strange. It makes me nervous. I guess we should start trying to do some research on them now though since we won't be able to do anymore spying until they get out of their play."

Once they had paid for their meal, Jane and Maura drove back across town to the parking garage near theatre and set up shop in the car with a lap top and a portable internet hotspot, intent on researching the mysterious couple until it was time to move on to their next location, wherever that may be.


	8. Chapter 8

It was almost 9:30 in the evening, and Jane and Maura found themselves once again hiding in their parked car watching video feed of the black Mercedes, when the suspects in question finally walked into frame. They were walking slowly towards their car holding hands while leaning heavily on each other's shoulders.

"Wait, are they crying?" Maura asked incredulously as she leaned forward to get a closer look at the video stream. Jane followed her line of vision, and sure enough the brunette, Regina, appeared to be sniffing while wiping tears off her cheek with the back of her free hand.

"Huh, must've been an intense play," Jane remarked, leaning in to look closer still. "She did tell the blonde at dinner to expect it to make her cry didn't she?" Jane remembered. "It is strange though seeing them look so human. All I've ever seen from that brunette is cold death glares."

When the two mysterious women finally reached their car, Emma walked Regina up to the driver side door and turned her so they were face to face. The blonde was now wiping at her eyes as well as she began to speak.

"I know you warned me that this show would hit close to home, but that was really more intense than I realized," she started. She gazed intensely into her wife's deep brown eyes, which were still streaming silent tears down her cheeks before taking a deep steadying breath and continuing. "I know you said you love the show and have seen it many times, but Regina, why would you put yourself through that. Why would you make yourself bring back all of these memories and emotions?"

"I'm sorry Emma," Regina mumbled, looking away, "I realize that was probably hard for you too, but for me it is important. You probably don't understand, but watching this show, it validates everything that I was feeling when I became the Evil Queen. It recognizes the feeling of being trapped and feeling like you have no choice. Every character in that show made bad choices and hurt people, but they all felt like it was what they had to do to survive, and for me, to see that being recognized is extremely important. So yes, I put myself through being reminded of bad memories because while I still know I made wrong choices and was not a good person, at least this reminds me that I was not alone in feeling the way I did. I am not alone in being blinded by anger, or doing what I felt I had to do to survive."

Emma gently reached her free hand up, tilting Regina's chin so they were once again eye-to-eye. She trailed her fingers softly up Regina's jaw before carefully wiping away a few remaining tears with her thumb. Green eyes were still lost in brown as she leaned in for a short soft kiss before gently pulling Regina's head down onto her shoulder and securing her arms around the rest of the brunette's body in a tight embrace. How long they stood there holding each other no one knew. Jane and Maura were too entranced in the scene unfolding before them to pay attention, and Emma and Regina were to lost in the moment. When the finally broke apart, their hands lingered lovingly on each other's shoulders before Regina turned to open her car door, and they both stepped silently into the vehicle. It wasn't until the Benz roared to life and began backing out of its parking spot that Jane and Maura broke out of their trance.

"Well that was… unexpected," Jane articulated, still staring at the video feed, seemingly lost for words.

"I do have to agree, I was not expecting such an intimate moment from them in public," Maura stated, "unfortunately that whole conversation does not seem to shed any more light on our situation. I think it is undeniable now that the brunette has some kind of past that she wants to forget, but we are still nowhere near finding out what that is, and it truly does seem like it is all in the past, so I'm not exactly sure how that is going to help us anyways."

"Yeah…." Jane trailed off still deep in thought, before snapping to attention. "We gotta go! Wherever they're off to now, we gotta follow. If we're going to get anywhere on this, we have to see the explosion thing again. If it doesn't happen tonight, then I agree with you, and we should just leave whatever dark past that Regina woman has alone."

* * *

The Sherriff and Mayor silently held hands across the center divide for the entire ride to their new hotel. Neither spoke a word once they reached the hotel except to check in at the front desk. It wasn't until they had all their luggage transported to their new room, and Emma was working on unpacking for the night, that she caught Regina standing stock still in the middle of the room staring at her, and the silence was finally broken.

"What?" she asked curiously, wondering what exactly was going on in her wife's mind. Regina had always been frustratingly unreadable, even to her, so she would be lying if she said she wasn't at least slightly unsettled by this unexpected stare down. It took a few moments for Regina to finally answer her.

"I just…" the brunette spoke softly, seemingly unable to form a sentence, and then suddenly she was striding purposefully over to Emma. She gently gripped Emma's bicep and pulled her up off the floor where she had been kneeling over her suitcase. Emma immediately found herself backed up against the wall, as Regina leaned heavily into her, softly cupping her cheek with her left hand, as her right still gripped Emma's upper arm.

"Do you know how much I love you?" Regina asked, staring into Emma's eyes with intensity greater than Emma had seen in a long time. "You are the most amazing human being I have ever met. In all my sixty-seven years of being alive."

Emma snorted. She couldn't stop herself. She tried, really, but she just couldn't help the laughter that suddenly burst out of her throat.

"I'm sorry," she chocked out, struggling for air. "I promise I'm not laughing at you. It's just, I know it's been 6 years since the whole curse break and all that, but I still have a really hard time believing that you are actually that old. I mean I look at you, and I see a young, beautiful woman, and I know it's because of magic, but I just can't get over the fact that you have actually lived for sixty-seven years. I mean you have lived a whole lifetime longer than I have. Anyways, I'm sorry, continue." She said finally composing herself. Regina merely chuckled.

"Really darling, that was all I wanted to say, although I was hoping you would take away more from that little speech than my age."

"Don't worry, I did," Emma smiled at her, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of brown hair behind Regina's ear. "And, incase you were wondering, you are the most amazing human being I have ever met in my entire life too. Although my life has been significantly shorter… but still, I love you so much, and you have made me so happy over the last few years. You have given me the one thing I never had, but always wanted: A home and a family. You and Henry, you are my family and my home, and I feel so blest to have you in my life."

They kissed slowly and languidly, showing their love for one another in every soft caress. Regina's hand slid down Emma's cheek to her neck, pulling her in closer, her other hand wandering from Emma's arm down to her waste. Emma's fingers tangled into Regina's thick brown locks, as they both lost themselves in the feeling of one another.

Soon the kisses became heated, tongues sliding frantically against one another, and Regina suddenly found herself spun around, back slamming forcefully into the wall, as Emma's strong hands had left her hair and were now secured around her torso. The mayor's abs tightened as she felt the caresses of Emma's fingers through the fabric of her skintight dark blue dress. Desperate for more contact, Regina shoved the blonde's red leather jacket off her shoulders, before pulling her back in close, and allowing her hands to wander up under the Sherriff's white tank top. She reveled in the feel the smooth skin under her fingertips, as she felt Emma's hands leave her torso and journey lower.

Emma ran both her hands up Regina's thighs, bringing her tight dress up around her waste as she went, and Regina gasped, as Emma's jean clad thigh was suddenly shoved up between her legs, initiating contact. She began grinding down on it enthusiastically, her black lace panties providing the only buffer between her now pulsing center and the rough friction of Emma's jeans. Both women moaned at the contact, and a small, soft white glow began pulsing between them.

* * *

Jane and Maura continued following the tracker until they pulled up to the parking lot of Ritz-Carlton Hotel. They quickly spotted the Benz, and deduced that their suspects had already checked into their room.

"See!" exclaimed Jane triumphantly, "They switched hotels, which means they are definitely trying to keep us from finding them, and don't want us snooping around anymore at The Four Seasons."

"True, the change of hotels could be suspicious," Maura agreed, "but then again they might just have changed because they think you're stocking them and want their privacy." Jane shot her a momentary glare, before opening her car door and hopping out.

"Come on, we gotta go figure out what room they're in so we know where to look." With that she was striding off towards the main office entrance. Maura quickly jumped out of the car and followed her.

"Hi, I'm Detective Jane Rizzoli, Boston PD." Jane stated as she swept up to the front desk, flashing her badge. "I'm going to need the room number of the blonde and brunette women who just checked in. Their first names should be Regina and Emma, unless they used false identification." She and Maura had attempted to look up more information about the couple while on stake out in the parking lot, however all their searches for Charmings in Maine came up empty. They had concluded that it was likely not a real last name, but another code name.

The young desk worker looked rather startled, but immediately began pulling up check in information on his computer.

"Ah here it is," he said when he finally found the information. "An Emma Swan-Mills checked into room 310 about ten minutes ago."

"Great, thank you," replied Jane, "Can I also get a floor plan of the building?"

"Uhhhh, I think so one second," the surprisingly composed youth answered, once again typing away at the computer. "Yes here it is, I'll print it off and have it for you in just a minute."

A few minutes later, Jane and Maura walked back out across the parking lot to their car, floor plan in hand. Once safely seated back in the vehicle, Jane looked carefully over the plan, quickly finding the room in question.

"Looks like it's a scenic view room on the south side. We're going to have to leave the car here, I don't think the windows face a parking lot."

The two women made their way around the building to a grassy area facing the window-covered wall of the hotel. Behind them they could see tall trees and high elevation housing.

"So according to this floor plan, their room should be three floors up, and fifth window from the right." Jane began walking along the side of the hotel, counting windows as she went. Finally she stopped, and abruptly dropped to a seated position in the grass, gazing up at the third floor.

"So, that's their window right there," she informed Maura, pointing it out. "We just have to sit here and wait for a while. Last time it didn't happen until around midnight, and it's only 10:00 now, so we might have to chill here for a little while."

Fortunately for Jane however, it seemed their wait would not be long at all. Not two minutes after she spoke, she noticed a small pulsing white light glowing from inside the room.

"There it is Maura, that's what I was telling you about!" she whispered excitedly, catching Maura's attention.

"That's not a very big light though, it could just be a dying flashlight, or a mini strobe or something," Maura whispered back.

"Just wait," replied Jane confidently, "it will get bigger. Trust me, I've seen this happen before."

With that they sat in silence, waiting. Very slowly, little by little, it did seem as though the pulsing glow was growing.

"Wow, that is very strange," Maura breathed in awe.

"I know right?" Jane muttered back, "and we haven't even gotten to the really good part yet!"

Jane and Maura waited and watched in awe as the white light slowly grew, until finally it filled the entire room. Then suddenly, exactly as Jane had witnessed the first time, it exploded; shattering in different shades and brightness, and then the whole room went dark.

"See," Jane said smugly, "That is what I was talking about."

"Yes, that is definitely… something." Maura commented, at a loss for words. "So what do we do now?" she asked when she finally was able to wrap her mind around what she had just witnessed.

"Well, going and knocking at their door again is out of the question," Jane replied, "But we will continue surveillance on them, and tomorrow I'm going to run their plates to find out their real identities. We also now have a last name, so we should be able to look up more information on them in the police database assuming they used their real names when they checked into the hotel. I guess after that we just try to get as much information as possible to find out what's going on."

Jane hauled herself back up to her feet, and then reached out to give Maura a hand. Soon they set off once again around the hotel building in search of their car, ready to call it a night.

* * *

**A/N: **So I really didn't want to end this chapter there, because really exciting stuff is about to happen, but it would have just been way too long if I included the next sequence of events. Also if you are expecting really detailed explicit smut in this that probably won't happen, just because it's not really in my comfort level to write at the moment. However, I hope you enjoy what I do write, and once again, thank you to everyone who has followed, favourited, and reviewed this story!


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** This is the chapter I've been trying to get to forever and I'm so excited about it and where the story is going now! Just a warning, there is a major car accident mentioned, but I promise there will be no character deaths. Thanks to all who followed, favourited, and reviewed this story :)

* * *

**Storybrooke 2 hours earlier**

Mary Margret and David sat in their living room watching the evening news.

"You know, I could get used to this," Mary Margaret remarked as she worked on knitting a new hat for her 3 year old son.

"hmmm," grunted David from the beside her on the couch. His eyes were halfway closed as he was already drifting off to sleep.

"I said, I could get used to this," Mary Margaret replied, finally pulling him out of his stupor.

"Get used to what?" he asked.

"I don't know, just having Henry around more. It has been so fun having him over for dinner everyday this week. Between all of his school activities and sports, I feel like we never get to see him anymore. It's just been so nice to able to hear about everything he's been up to, and have him around to help out with Neal. Do you think Emma and Regina would let us have him over a couple times a week for dinner after they get back? I mean, I know we're stuck to our two times a month dinner schedule with them because Regina still prefers not to be around us, but I really miss Henry."

"I dunno," David mumbled tiredly, "you can ask. Worst thing is that they say no. Anyways Regina can't complain because it's not like your inviting her over. Although you know she hates missing out on time with him."

"I know," Mary Margaret sighed. "By the way, do you remember what time Henry's study group was supposed to end? He promised to call when he left."

"I think he said he'd be heading back to the mansion around 8:30. Don't worry, he'll call before he leaves and again when he gets home, just like he has every night."

"Yeah… I just don't understand why he can't just stay with us while his parents are out of town? Why does he have to stay all alone in that huge house?"

"Snow, we've been over this," David addressed his wife. "Henry is almost an adult. He doesn't need to be baby sat by his grandparents. He can be responsible for house sitting his own home for one week. We should be grateful he even agreed to have dinner with us everyday and call to check in. Most teenagers would consider themselves too cool to hang out with their grandparents when their parents are out of town."

"Ha, like he has a choice," Snow snorted. "Regina never would have left town if she hadn't made him promise to check in with us constantly. You know what she's like when she has to be away from him."

Just then Mary Margaret's cell phone rang.

"Ooh it's Henry," she squealed as she picked it up.

"Hey Gram," said Henry through the phone's speaker.

"Hey Henry, how was study group?" Mary Margaret replied.

"It was great. I think we're all really ready for this biology test tomorrow!" Henry exclaimed proudly. "Anyways, I just wanted to let you know that I'm leaving the Tillman's and will text you when I get home in like 20 minutes."

"Thanks for checking in Henry, drive safe!"

"No problem, see you tomorrow." Henry hung up.

* * *

Henry carefully tucked his phone back into the pocket of his blue jeans and fished out his car keys. With a strategic jiggle, he successfully unlocked the driver side door of the old yellow Volkswagen bug and got in. He still couldn't believe his parents had agreed to give him free rain in Emma's car while they were gone. He knew he definitely owed Emma big time for this, as his other mother probably put up a huge fight about it. He turned the key in the ignition and jabbed the radio to turn it onto his favorite classic rock station before carefully backing out of the Tillman's drive way.

One thing Henry had learned about living in a small town was that things close down early, and after nine o'clock, most people are already at home getting ready for bed, unless you are Leroy and are still at the bar. So the ride home was fairly uneventful as he drove down the quiet, nearly deserted streets of Storybrooke. That is until he turned left, crossing the intersection from Main onto Mifflin Street.

He had seen the car coming, had seen it approaching the intersection, but he knew he had a solid green arrow. He knew the car would be stopping. Then there was a deafening crash, and the bug went rolling. Henry felt his head hit against the side window as the car eventually came to a halt. Groggily, through the aching throb on the side of his head, he tried to dig for his cell phone in his pocket. When he found it, he managed to keep his eyes open long enough to dial 911, before he slumped forward, unconscious.

* * *

**Present time, Boston**

Jane and Maura were just climbing back into their car, all set to leave the Ritz-Carlton and end their surveillance mission for the night, when they heard the yelling.

"We should never have left him home alone! This is exactly why I never wanted to go on one of these trips with you before!" a woman was screaming angrily. A commotion was coming from the hotel's main entrance as Jane now recognized their blonde suspect, Emma, coming crashing out through the automatic doors hauling two large suitcases and in hot pursuit of the screaming brunette.

"Regina, would you please just calm down!" the blonde shouted after her. "Or at least just slow down so that I don't kill myself trying to get all this luggage to the car before you take off without me leaving me stranded here."

The brunette woman storming across the parking lot whipped around.

"NO, I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!" she screeched back at the blonde. "WHAT PART OF CAR CRASH AND UNCONCIOUS IN THE HOSPITAL DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND!"

With that she turned back around and continued barreling towards her car. As she drew nearer, Jane took in the absolute panicked look on Regina's face. She should have been worried about being discovered by the brunette, but at this point she realized Regina undoubtedly had tunnel vision and would not be taking in any of her surroundings. It seemed however, that by the time she actually reached her car, the brunette had lost her fire. A chirping sound revealed that she had remotely unlocked the car, but instead of getting in the driver's seat and speeding off, as Jane suspected she might, the woman seemed to lose all her strength. She leaned back against the vehicle and then crumbled, sinking down until she was sitting on the ground next to her car, head in her hands.

A few moments later, Jane observed the blonde finally approach the car with all the luggage. Producing her own set of keys from her pocket, she unlocked the trunk and dutifully packed the suitcases inside, before slamming it closed. Then she was walking cautiously towards the brunette who was still sitting slumped on the ground next the car. Very slowly Emma crouched down next to Regina, putting an arm around her.

"Come here," she said, so softly that Jane could barely hear from where she stood three cars away. The blonde pulled Regina into an embrace before pulling her hands down from her face, and turning the tear stained eyes to face her.

"I know you're scared," she started softly, "but we are not going to lose him ok? You hear me?"

"How do you know? We have come too close to losing him too many times. I don't think I could handle it if he doesn't survive," Regina gasped out through her tears. "This is all our fault. We could have prevented this from happening. If we had just stayed in Storybrooke, this never would have happened."

"Regina," Emma sighed, "this could have happened no matter what we did. Even if we had been home, Henry still drives himself to and from the Tillman's every Wednesday night for his study group. There is nothing we could have done."

"But how can you say that!" Regina shouted in frustration, "I am Regina Fucking Mills. That name is supposed to mean something. How can I be so powerful and yet not even be able to protect my own son? How is it fair that he fought and survived all the horrible things we've been through just to die in a fucking hit and run car accident? I swear to God I am going to find the bastard who did this, and I am going to kill him."

"Henry is NOT dead," Emma yelled forcefully. "Dr. Wale said he just suffered a minor concussion and should be awake by the time we get there."

"A MINOR CONCUSSION? A MINOR CONCUSSION? Tell me Emma, if it was such a minor injury, WHY IS HE STILL UNCONCIOUS NOW?"

"Fine, maybe it was a major concussion, but we won't really know everything until we get there. For now, we just have to have faith that he WILL wake up, and he WILL be ok."

"You always were annoyingly optimistic," Regina spat humorlessly. "You had better be right, but whether he wakes up or not, I am still going to find who did this and make them pay." Regina's eyes glinted dangerously in the dim light of the street lamp, and Jane shivered at the sound as her voice went cold as ice. _Yes, _Jane thought, _I definitely do not want to get on the bad side of that one. Whoever she is, there is no doubt that she can be dangerous when she wants to be._ The blonde was speaking again.

"I promise Regina, we will find whoever is responsible, but you have to trust me and let me handle it. I know if it were up to you they would be dead, but that is not how it works anymore. You know that, and I know you don't want to relapse. Just trust me to handle this. I'll even let you help as long as you promise to do things my way." Regina sighed.

"You know I trust you Emma," she said softly. "I know you will do the right thing. I just want justice for Henry."

"I know," Emma replied, standing up and offering an arm to Regina. "Now we need to hit the road," she said as she dragged Regina up off the ground. "And I am driving back. I don't care what you think, but you are not in any state to be behind the wheel."

"Yes dear," Regina groaned sarcastically as she rounded the Benz to get into the passenger seat. As Emma situated herself in the drivers seat, she leaned across to give Regina a comforting kiss on the lips before starting the car and speeding off into the night.

* * *

Jane got into the driver's seat of the Prius and quickly started the car, speeding out of the parking lot after the Mercedes.

"Where are we going?" Maura asked from the passenger seat.

"After them," came Jane's curt reply. After a few moments she explained, "They are leaving town, so we need to follow them. Here pull up the tracker app," she handed Maura her cell phone.

"Don't you think we should lay off?" Maura asked tentatively, "obviously they are having some type of family emergency. Shouldn't we respect their privacy?"

"I'm not trying to be insensitive," Jane sighed, "but you saw the explosion. You know they are up to something. I can't one hundred percent trust that this wasn't all just an act to throw us off their trail. We go after them, and if their son really was in a car accident, then yeah we'll lay off, but if not, and we can dig up more information by following them out of town, than that's all the better for us."

"Fine," Maura huffed, "but I'm going to start doing some research so that we know a little more about what we're getting into." Maura reached down and pulled her laptop out of her bag, opened it, and immediately pulled up the police database.

"All right, I just ran their plates," she told Jane a few minutes later, as they continued to speed through the city. "The vehicle is a Mercedes Benz registered to one Regina Mills. She's the brunette, so it appears they were using their real names. I wonder why Emma changed her last name but Regina didn't…" Maura mused, "anyways, all the information I can pull up on her says that she is the mayor of a small town called Storybrooke, is married to an Emma Swan (never mine, looks like the blonde didn't legally change her name either), and they have a son Henry, age sixteen. Hold on a minute, I'm going to do a little more digging."

Jane remained focused on the road and the black Mercedes ahead of them, making sure to always stay a few cars back so as to not raise suspicion. She could hear the frantic clicking of keys as Maura silently continued her search.

"Now this is interesting," Maura said a few minutes later, "Henry is actually adopted, which them being a lesbian couple isn't all that surprising in itself, BUT that is not all there is to the story. Emma and Regina only got married two years ago. It appears Regina adopted Henry alone sixteen years ago from an adoption agency here in Boston. The strangest part is that it appears, according to these records, that it was a closed adoption, but the birth mother is none other than Emma Swan."

"Wait, if it was a closed adoption, how did she end up marrying the kid's adoptive mother?" Jane asked glancing over at Maura.

"Exactly my question," Maura responded. "It get's a little fishy. At the time of the adoption, Emma Swan was only seventeen years old. I looked into her and found that she actually has a criminal record, unlike Regina who came up squeaky clean. It appears that she was actually in prison at the time of Henry's birth. What we can't know from these records is whether or not Emma and Regina knew each other at the time. If they did know each other though, then why would Emma have bothered with the closed adoption?

Also another somewhat suspicious thing I noticed is Regina's age on these adoption papers. According to these records, she was thirty-three years old, and already Mayor when she adopted him, but that would mean that she would be forty-nine years old now, and I don't about you, but there is no way that woman is forty-nine. If anything, she looks like she could be younger than thirty-three now, not sixteen years older."

"So you think that she lied about her age on the adoption papers?" Jane asked, "but that doesn't really make sense, because then how old do you think she actually was when she adopted? If we guess that she is somewhere between thirty-five and forty-five, that would put her between ages nineteen and twenty-nine when she adopted Henry."

"Right," Maura responded, "now it is possible that someone say twenty-five to twenty-nine could become mayor, but any younger they would still be in school. That's another thing that doesn't really make sense though, how did she manage to stay mayor for sixteen years running? Although it varies from city to city, most cities have a term limit of at most four years, and a re-election limit of two to three terms. That would allow her a maximum of twelve years as mayor, not sixteen."

"Is it possible that maybe in a small town like Storybrooke they don't have any term laws in effect for the mayor? I mean my experience with small towns is that they don't like change, so if they get someone in office they like, they probably wouldn't be opposed to keeping them indefinitely," Jane mused.

"It is possible," Maura conceded, "but I still think it is slightly suspicious. That still begs the question of why such a young woman pursuing such a demanding and high stress career would want to adopt a child when they are single and just barely considered an adult."

"That's probably exactly why she lied about her age you know," Jane answered, "if she had told the adoption agency that she was a say 23 year old single working woman, they would never have given her a baby."

"I just feel like we're still missing something with how this all played out," said Maura. "I'm going to run Storybrooke through the database and see what I can find on the towns history."

"Huh," Maura voiced a few minutes later, "According to the police databases, their supposed little town called Storybrooke doesn't exist."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Woot Woot! Jane and Maura are on their way to Storybrooke! Also Emma and Regina find out more about Henry's condition.

* * *

"_Huh," Maura voiced a few minutes later, "According to the police databases, their supposed little town called Storybrooke doesn't exist."_

* * *

"So if Storybrooke doesn't exist," Jane processed, "then where exactly are they taking us?"

"I have no idea," Maura responded, "although I wouldn't say they're taking us anywhere, as they don't actually know we're following them."

"Whatever, you know what I mean," Jane grumbled.

"I'm going to do some more research," Maura informed her. "There is a lot more information available on Emma Swan than there is on Regina Mills, so I think I'll start there. There's not really much on her directly after she was released from prison, but it looks like she did move around a lot. She didn't come back to Boston until 2008 when she started working as a bail bondsman at age twenty-five.

Apparently she continued working here in Boston until she quit her bail bonds job unexpectedly in 2011 just a couple weeks after her twenty-eighth birthday. After that there is no more information about her. She still owns an apartment in Boston though, but is not paying for any utilities or other services. We might be able to call up the manager and see what information he has."

"So I'm going to put out a theory here, and yes Maura, I know you don't like to guess, but do you think it is plausible that her disappearing from Boston in 2011 could be related to her connecting, or reconnecting, with Regina?" Jane asked.

"That actually would make a lot of sense, especially if she moved to Regina's 'town' wherever that may be."

"I wanna know more about Regina Mills," Jane stated, glancing over at Maura, "we should be able to get more information than that she adopted a kid in Boston and is the Mayor of some fictional town. I mean, she had to come from somewhere. Where was she born, where did she go to school, how did she campaign for mayor? There should be accessible records of these things."

* * *

"I'm still coming up empty," Maura huffed in frustration. She had been searching all possible databases for at least an hour, even hacking into some of the more off limits ones as Frost had taught her, but still could not find much about the mysterious Regina Mills.

"All information about her relates her back to Storybrooke. Her birth certificate says she was born at Storybrooke General Hospital, her high school diploma says Storybrooke High School, and her law degree apparently came from Storybrooke University. It's all fake. There is no such school as Storybrooke High School or Storybrooke University in state records. I also can't find any hospital records or records of Storybooke General existing. I honestly don't know how she managed to get away with using all of this fake information for so long."

"Here's an important question," Jane butt into her rant, "what is the date on her birth certificate? That might give us a better idea of what was going on around the time of Henry's adoption."

"Well that makes everything even more suspicious. According to the birth certificate we have on file, she was born in 1965 which would put her at thirty-three when she adopted Henry. That still doesn't make any sense to me though. Strangely, while all these records have dates on them, the folder itself was date stamped October 1983. That could either mean there was some major file reorganization in 1983, OR the file on Regina Mills didn't exist at all until 1983, which makes me believe even more strongly that this is all a fake, and rather poorly made, identity."

"So the question is," Jane mused, "what happened in 1983 that caused her to need a new identity?"

"Emma Swan was born in October 1983… that could be important."

"How is it that all our research is just making everything more confusing?" Jane asked in frustration.

"I don't know, but whatever is going on, I don't think we're going to find out much else just from these records. We'll have to wait and see where they lead us. Maybe we can find a more legitimate excuse to approach them, make them answer some questions."

"Yeah I guess we will," Jane mused, "on a more positive note, it looks like they _are_ actually going to Maine." Jane pointed out as they approached the 'Welcome to Maine' sign at the state line.

* * *

Emma and Regina rode in silence, Emma doing her best to make good time without being pulled over by a cop, and Regina lost in her own world, memories of her whole life with Henry filling her mind as she tried to focus on all the good memories she had with him, instead of the dread pooling in the pit of her stomach at the thought of what she might find when they finally got to him at Storybrooke's hospital. After two whole hours of silence, they finally crossed the border into Maine.

"Just one more hour until we reach Storybrooke," Emma said encouragingly, reaching over to gently grip Regina's knee. "Just hang in there, everything is going to be ok, I can feel it." Regina's only response was to reach out, covering Emma's hand in her own, and cling onto it in a death grip.

Suddenly a loud buzzing echoed through the silent car as Emma's cell phone vibrated against the plastic cup holder she had thrown it in. She glanced over at Regina.

"Hey can you look and see who it is? It might be my mother with an update about Henry." Regina silently nodded and reached over to grab the still buzzing object. Seeing Mary Margaret's face light up the screen, she immediately hit the talk button, and held the phone up to her ear.

"Snow!" she answered sharply.

"Regina?" came the other woman's surprised reply.

"Yes it's Regina, Emma's driving obviously. What do you want?" Mary Margaret's resigned sigh crackled through the line.

"I just want to update you. Henry got out of surgery about ten minutes ago and –"

"What? Why was he in surgery? Why wasn't I informed of this?" Regina yelped.

"They had to insert some pins into his broken ankle, but –"

"He had a broken ankle? And you failed to mention this the first time you called?" Regina was furious.

"Wait, you didn't know about his broken ankle?" Mary Margaret asked confused.

"No I did not. All you said was that Henry was in a car accident, and that I couldn't talk to him because he wasn't awake. When I asked about his injuries you said he suffered a minor concussion."

"Righhht," Mary Margaret responded, realization donning on her. "And at that point of the conversation, you interrupted me to yell about how incompetent and irresponsible I was to let something like this happen on my watch and then you proceeded to hang up. I never got the chance to fully explain his condition.

The concussion was actually very minor. The worst of his injuries was the broken ankle, which as I already said he needed surgery for. They sedated him for the pain on scene, and then ran a bunch of tests before taking him to surgery. I would have called you before the surgery, but I figured you would be driving, and I didn't want to unnecessarily worry you until I knew how the surgery went."

"Well you still should have informed us!" Regina shouted in frustration, "Even if we were driving, obviously one of us could have answered the phone!"

"You know what Regina, I'm sorry. I know you probably hate it that I am the one who is here with Henry and not you, but you need to pull yourself together and stop taking out your fear and anger on me. Things have been extremely hectic, as David and I are not only trying to keep track of Henry and his condition, but are also trying to run an investigation to find the driver of the other vehicle. It was a hit and run, no witnesses, so it's been a bit of a difficult investigation, although now Henry is out of surgery we should be able to get a description from him if he remembers.

But that really is all beside the point. The real reason I called you was to let you know that Henry is out of surgery and is _awake_," she emphasized the word, in an attempt to get through to Regina, who she knew could very possible be tuning out everything she was saying. "And he's been asking for you, so if you are willing, I'm going to give him the phone."

"He's awake?" Regina cried out in relief, feeling tears leap into her eyes once more.

"Yes, he's awake. He wants to speak to you."

"Yes! Put him on the phone!" she exclaimed, and then as an after thought whispered, "thank you Snow." It was rather hesitant, and she was still angry at Snow's obvious incompetence, but it was an olive branch all the same. Mary Margaret just sighed in relief, knowing Regina did not want a response to that, before handing over the phone to Henry who was sitting propped up in his hospital bed, bandaged ankle held up by a strange contraption of slings to keep it elevated.

"Hi Mom!" he greeted her cheerily.

"Oh Henry, Thank God!" Regina whimpered, before dissolving into sobs once more.

Emma, who had been listening in on Regina's half of the conversation, was now eyeing her with relief. She held out her hand to Regina, hinting to her to hand over the cell phone. Regina, realizing she wasn't going to get words out any time soon, reluctantly handed over the device. Shifting her eyes back to the road, Emma expertly hit the speakerphone button before greeting Henry.

"Hey kid!," she said as cheerfully as possible, "I heard you got in a bit of an accident. How're you holding up?"

"Oh, hey Ma!," came his happy reply, "I'm fine actually. Just a bit of a headache. Although I'm sure when the pain meds start wearing off my ankle will hurt like a bi – "

"HENRY!" Regina scolded through her tears, shooting a glare at Emma as though Henry's language was her fault. Admittedly it might be, but Emma was not going to take responsibility that easily.

"Sorry Mom!" Henry replied unapologetically, "Hey Ma, you should have warned me you guys were on speaker phone. Anyways, is Mom ok? It sounded like she was crying when she answered the phone." When Regina only managed a sniff in response, Emma answered her son.

"She's fine Henry. Better now that we've been able to talk to you. We've just been really worried. We didn't really get much of the story about what happened so it's been hard for us to anticipate how serious your injuries were, and you know your Mom hates it when you're hurt."

"Oh," he said, sounded a little ashamed, "I'm sorry for worrying you. I promise it won't happen again."

"Henry," Emma sighed, "you can't promise that. It was an accident, it wasn't your fault. At least from the sounds of it." Then after a pause she continued, "I hear they're investigating the other vehicle. Can you tell me exactly what happened? I'll probably be taking over the investigation for David once we get there."

"Uhhh yeah, sure," said Henry uncertainly. He wasn't sure whether or not he was actually going to be in trouble for this, but decided that didn't really matter at the moment, so he continued,

"I was driving home from the Tillman's, because we had study group, and I had a solid green arrow to turn left from Main onto Mifflin, so I turned. Only there was another car coming down Main in the opposite direction. I saw them, but I assumed they were going to stop because I had a green light, but they didn't I guess. I don't really know what happened except that one minute they were driving up to the intersection, and next thing I know the bug was rolling. I think the car was blue… I didn't get a license plate number though, sorry."

"It's ok Kid, I don't' expect you to be in full on detective mode when you're in the middle of an accident. We'll work on getting a better vehicle description out of you when we get there. For now, I just want you to rest ok?"

"Ok," Henry replied, "and Mom?" he addressed Regina directly.

"Yes Henry," Regina managed to answer.

"You can stop crying now. I'm perfectly fine, and you'll be here in no time. I promise you can smother me with as many hugs and kisses as you like when you see me," he said, amusement dancing in his voice.

"Thank you my little Prince," Regina sighed, letting herself smile for the first time in over two hours.

"Alright, well I should probably get going. David and Ruby want to ask me some questions about the crash, and then Dr. Whale says I need to take a nap because apparently having surgery is exhausting for the human body. You two drive safely, and don't speed!" he scolded before softening his tone. "I love you both, and I can't wait for you to get back."

"We love you too Henry," Regina responded before Henry said a quick "bye", and the line went dead.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **Storybrooke time! yeeeeeee. Anywho, as you can see, I'm really excited about where this story is going. Also, sorry for the lack of updates in the past couple weeks, I've had a lot going on with work and school. And as always, thank you for following, favoriting, and reviewing :)

* * *

"Where the hell are they taking us?" Jane asked indignantly as they turned onto yet another curving road through what seemed to be a huge forest in the middle of nowhere.

"Well honestly, I can't really tell where we are," Maura stated trying to zoom in on their location on Jane's phone's GPS. "The closest town I can see is about thirty miles east of here, but they seem to be heading north… Although this road is curving around so much there's no way to tell where we'll end up."

At this point, there were the only two cars on the road for miles. Jane did her best to keep a safe distance so as not to raise suspicion, but always tried to keep the black Mercedes in view. They continued winding their way through the forest in the middle of nowhere for what seemed like hours, Jane's eyes glued straight ahead on the red dots in the distance signifying the Mercedes' tail lights. Then suddenly out of nowhere, all signs of the car in front of them disappeared in a shimmer of purple tinted smoke.

"What in the hell!" Jane gasped in shock, blinking a few times to make sure she hadn't just been seeing things with her now tired eyes. They had been driving for over three hours and it was now nearly 2:00 in the morning. "Did you see that?" Jane glanced over at Maura, now that she had convinced herself that she had in fact just seen their target's car disappear in a purple tinted shimmer, which now had cleared leaving no sign of the car ever having been on the road in the first place.

"See what?" Maura asked confused, looking up from Jane's phone where she had been following the progress of the blinking dot on the tracker app.

"The car!" Jane exclaimed, "It just disappeared! I have no idea where it went, but there was like this shimmering purple mist and then it was gone, and I _know_ I didn't let us get far enough behind them to just lose it like that, and seriously where the hell would they have gone? This road has no cross streets, there is only one way forward. There's no way I could have lost them, they just up and disappeared!" Maura was now squinting through the Prius's windshield as if she thought she would be able to make out the missing car in the distance even though Jane could not. Then she was glancing back and forth between the phone's tracker app and the road ahead of them.

"I don't understand…" she whispered in wonder, "this makes absolutely no sense. You're right that they are obviously nowhere in sight, but their car is still apparently driving not 50 ft ahead of us according to the tracker…" she looked over at Jane as they both exchanged looks of complete and udder bewilderment, and possibly a bit of fear.

"I don't understand how they're doing this," Jane groaned in frustration. "First with the magic light show that leaves absolutely no evidence of an explosion, and then an entire Mercedes Benz disappearing in a poof of smoke? Like what even… What are they some sort of wizard magicians? Are we like going to find out that Hogwarts is actually a real place or something? Or do you think there's a different place for young Wizards here in Maine… Maybe that's what Storybrooke is, an invisible wizarding town like Hogsmeade." Jane muttered more to herself than to Maura who was staring at her like she had gone insane.

"I really hope you were joking about that last part," Maura said, laughing awkwardly, "I mean, not to say that magic could never exist, as I am sure in the future there is a possibility someone will figure out how to manipulate energy in a way to make it _seem_ like magic, however that technology does not exist yet, and either way the magic in Harry Potter still would not comply with any of the rules of energy which would be needed for technology like that."

"Ummm yeah, I was joking actually," Jane replied incredulously, "you're not actually telling me you would consider magic as a possibility here?"

"Well not in _this _case, but as I said, I would never rule out the possibility that in the future there will be technology developed which can manipulate energy in that way," Maura responded matter-of-factly.

"well OK then," said Jane, forcing her mind to return to their present situation, "So if they are still showing up on our tracker, do you think we should just keep following the tracker and hope we find their car eventually?"

"Well I think that's the only option we seem to have."

Suddenly, a shimmer of purple seemed to be enveloping the front of the Prius, showing more intensity where it touched the car, then stretching out creating a shimmering wall across the entire road until it faded into the trees on either side.

"Ahh! What's happening!" Jane shouted, startled.

"Maybe we're going through some sort of barrier…" Maura replied in wonder looking around to take it all in. Then, just as soon as it had started, they were through and the purple mist disappeared.

"Look! Over there!" Maura pointed to the right side of the road where there as an old faded sign, "Slow down so I can read it," she commanded. Jane did as she was told, and both women squinted through the windshield to make out the fading lettering on the sign. "Welcome to Storybrooke" it read.

"Well I'll be," said Jane dumbfounded, "I guess the town of Storybrooke actually does exist. Hey where are we on the map?" Maura quickly switched back the GPS app and stared at it for a few moments before answering, "well, it apparently can't match our location. It seems we really are off the grid here. I wonder why Storybrooke isn't listed anywhere as an actual town. Do you think it's just a huge campus of some crazy illegal operation and that's why it doesn't exist in the state records?"

"I have no idea, but we are going to get to the bottom of this very soon," Jane replied, and then pointed up the road ahead of them, "Look who's come back into view," she informed Maura as they could indeed now see the black Benz making its way up the road just ahead of them. They continued to follow the black car in silence and found themselves making their way into what seemed to be a sleepy old fashioned town. It looked to be a very low population small town, with one Main Street lined with shops. There was no one out and about, although that was probably because it was 2:30 in the morning. Then they passed the only building on the street that seemed to even be open for business.

"The Rabbit Hole," Jane read out loud as they drove by, watching a very short man stagger out of the front door, obviously extremely inebriated. "Looks like the town bar," Jane remarked, "I sure hope he's not planning to drive home." Her tone was somewhat sarcastic, and Maura laughed before replying, "I doubt it, this seems to be the type of small town where people mostly walk everywhere. So much for my theory though, it really does just seem like a sleepy old coastal town."

"Yeah, I guess it does," Jane breathed taking in her surroundings in awe. Then the black car in front of them was turning onto a side street ahead of them. "oop looks like they're goin' somewhere!" Jane exclaimed, suddenly excited at the prospects of solving this particular mystery. They continued following the car through what still seemed to be part of the main downtown district until they turned into the parking lot of what Jane and Maura could now see was Storybrooke General Hospital. They parked far enough away so as not to be seen, and then waited for the blonde and brunette mystery women to enter the hospital. Once they were safely out of sight, Jane and Maura got out of the car and made their way to the building. Carefully looking around to ensure Emma and Regina were no longer in the main lobby, Jane and Maura entered the hospital and made their way up to what looked like a check in desk.

"May I help you?" asked the night shift desk clerk.

"Uhhh we're looking for a patient," Jane answered, "A Henry Mills?" The woman's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why?" she asked in return.

"We heard he was in a car accident. Just wanted to check in and see him," Jane explained, desperately hoping that what they had overheard of Emma and Regina's argument in the parking lot of the hotel had all been true. The desk clerk however continued to look at her suspiciously.

"Henry's mothers just checked in a few minutes ago and did not mention any other visitors should be expected. It is 2:30 am and past visiting hours, so if you are not an immediate family member, I cannot give you any information about the patient."

"All right, listen up," Jane said, losing her patience. "So maybe I'm not a family member, and maybe it _is _past visiting hours, but I am a police officer," she pulled her badge out, slamming it on the counter in front of the startled woman who she now noticed wore a name tag reading "Aurora". She rolled her eyes at this, remembering the apparent code name their suspects had been using of Peter Pan, and wondering if Aurora was supposed to signify Sleeping Beauty, or if it was just a coincidence. "A detective actually," she stated to reiterate her point, "and we are investigating Henry's parents, so if you would be so kind to allow us access."

"Actually, I don't think so," Aurora replied haughtily, "Your badge here states that you are from Boston P.D., and this is Storybrooke, so you have no jurisdiction. I suggest you leave now before I call the town Sheriff, who by the way _is_ one of Henry Mills's mothers. His other mother is the town Mayor, so I suggest you become 100% sure that the two woman are actually guilty of whatever you suspect them of before you let them know you're even investigating, because if I can guarantee you one thing, it's that you don't want to get on the wrong side of the Royal Family, and if you are going up against Emma and Regina, well then you will most certainly be up against all of them." Jane gapped at her for a moment, completely lost for words. _What the heck is she even talking about? _She wondered, _Royal Family? REALLY? What kind of old fashioned town is this place._ Thankfully, Maura chose this moment to speak up.

"Oh don't worry, we don't think they did anything wrong… at least not yet. If you don't mind, I think we'll just get going. Thank you so much for your help… Aurora," she said reading the woman's name tag.

"Really, it's no problem," replied Aurora, smiling sweetly at Maura, grateful that at least one of the Boston women seemed to have some manners. Gently grabbing Jane's arm, Maura half led, half dragged her out of the hospital. Jane did not speak again until they got back to the car.

"Well I guess that was a bust," she finally said. "Hopefully that desk bimbo won't think to mention our little visit to her beloved mayor."

"Oh come on Jane, she was only doing her job. She was right, we don't actually have jurisdiction here, and we aren't even on a police sanctioned case anyways. We just have to hope that their son being in the hospital is genuine and wait until tomorrow to further investigate. I vote we go find a hotel, assuming this tiny town has one, and call it a night. It's late, or should I say early, and we could both use some sleep. Tomorrow we'll be able to explore the town and try to find out more about its residents and see if anyone can tell us anything about the Swan-Mills family."

"Yeah, Ok," Jane sighed climbing back into the car. "But seriously, a Royal Family? What was she talking about?" She snorted, laughing darkly, "Huh I wonder if 'the rest of them'" she finger quoted "are those Charmings Regina was complaining about. Seriously, I would complain about my in laws too if they referred to themselves as the Royal Family."

"Well lucky for you, my parents do no such thing," Maura answered without thinking.

"What!" Jane gawked.

"what?" Maura replied blankly, suddenly realizing what she had said out loud.

"You know what never mind," Jane brushed off the awkward moment. "Let's just go get some rest and deal with the rest of this mess in the morning."


	12. Chapter 12

Regina stormed through the hospital as fast as she could in 4 inch high heels, Emma hot on her tail. When they finally reached Henry's room, she swept in, immediately running to kneel at her son's bedside.

"Henry!" she choked out a sob, taking in his appearance, lying back in a hospital gown with his leg bandaged and propped up, looking exhausted.

"Oh thank God you're finally here," he chuckled, "Now I can finally go to sleep."

"What?" Regina asked in a startled tone, but relaxing when she recognized the mirth on his face. "What do you mean by that?" she asked more calmly.

"Oh, well Dr. Whale told me to sleep ages ago, but I wanted to wait until you got here. I knew you would need to see me and make sure I was ok, and somehow I just don't think you would have believed everything was all right if I was sound asleep when you got here." Regina chuckled darkly before responding, "You're probably right about that." She leaned in to kiss him lovingly on the forehead before continuing, "How did you get to be such an insightful young man?" He just laughed in response.

"You really are ok then?" Regina asked, once more sweeping her eyes up and down her son's body to take inventory of the damage as Emma stood silently off to the side taking in the scene before her of the two people whom she loved most in the entire world. Well really all of the worlds.

"Yes, I really am," Henry smiled softly, "It's just a broken leg, and Dr. Whale said I should get out of this cast in a few months."

"Oh thank the gods," Regina breathed, and then she smacked Henry in the shoulder, with a little more force than necessary and said angrily, "Never do this again! I was so worried," but Henry knew she really wasn't angry at all, just afraid, so he gently took her hands in his and calmly replied, "I'm sorry Mom. It won't happen again. You don't have to be afraid anymore though. I'm fine. I'm right here." They stayed like that for a long time until Emma finally cleared her throat interrupting the moment.

"So uhhh not to be all about business and all, but did David say anything to you about how the investigation is going? Do they know anything knew about the hit and run?"

"Uhhh not really that I know of," Henry replied, looking over at her, though he still kept Regina's hands held tightly in his own. While he was telling the truth when he told her that he truly was fine, he still knew and appreciated just how lucky he was. His car had literally rolled in the middle of the street and he had lived to tell the tale. He knew he could not take that for granted.

"Come here Ma," he said addressing Emma. He extricated one hand from Regina's hold and held out his arm on the other side of his hospital bed. Emma slowly made her way across the room and allowed Henry to pull her into his best attempt at a one armed hug. "I know you were worried about me too, you don't have to pretend to be the strong one anymore." Emma laughed, but squeezed him just a little tighter all the same. "You know me far too well for your own good," she sniffed, finally letting the tears she had been holding in all night streams down her cheeks.

"Come here, get up here both of you," Henry said, patting the bed on either side of him.

"Henry, I don't think all three of us can fit on this tiny hospital bed of yours," Regina sighed, even though she appreciated the gesture.

"Yes we can, come on, try. I almost died today. I want to be with my moms."

"Alright, alright Kid, no need to be so morose," Emma laughed, climbing up to squish in next to Henry, soon to be joined by a still slightly skeptical Regina on the other side. Once he had both his mothers pulled in tightly, and surprisingly somewhat comfortably, on either side of him, Henry spoke again.

"See, this is nice," he said, "David and Mary Margaret went home about half an hour ago. I don't think David is going to work on the case again until tomorrow. But really, it's Storybrooke, and other than you two no one can leave, so I don't think it'll be hard to find the guy who hit me. Why don't you two just relax for the night. I'm sure you're both exhausted, and I would really like it if you stayed here with me. We could probably convince the nurse to bring in an extra cot or something."

"Aww but I like it right here," Regina pouted from where her head was now snuggled into Henry's chest. Henry laughed loudly, "I'm sure you do. Actually, I like it too, buuuut I think you really did have a point, and one of you would probably end up on the ground with we tried to sleep this way, so I'm going to go ahead and call a nurse to bring you a bed."

"Fine," Regina groused back sleepily, "but we can stay like to for a little bit longer."

"Yes we can," replied Henry, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly.

* * *

The next morning came much too early for Jane Rizzoli. It was only about 7:00 am when she was suddenly woken by the loud ringing of her cell phone. She sat up as quickly as possible to answer it before it could wake up Maura as well.

"Hey Ma!" she greeted, before realizing her mistake when nausea began to roll through her stomach. "Aw shit I definitely just sat up to fast, uhhhh here talk to Maura," she said as she threw the phone at Maura's sleeping form in the bed next to her. _Because that's not weird at all, best friends sleeping in the same bed and it actually being a rather regular occurrence… right?_ The thought barely surfaced in her mind as she ran off towards the bathroom. She and Maura had checked into a room at Granny's Bed & Breakfast after driving back through Main Street in search of a hotel the night before.

Maura woke to being hit in the shoulder with Jane's phone and rolled over to see Jane nowhere in sight. _Huh_ she thought, picking up the phone and staring at it blearily.

"Jane! Jane! Are you there? Maura? Hello!" Maura could hear the muffled sounds coming out of the phone, and slowly raised it to her ear, still in a half asleep confused state.

"Hello?" she answered groggily.

"Hello? Maura!" came the replying voice who was unmistakably Angela Rizzoli.

"Oh high Angela!" said Maura cheerily, waking up a bit more, and then she realized. "Oh Crap." She said out loud before quickly apologizing, "sorry Angela. Uhhhh I'm guessing you want to know where we are?" she asked.

"Like hell I do!" Angela exclaimed angrily from down the line. "I went over to Jane's apartment last night to see if she wanted to have dinner, and she wasn't home, so I called Vince to see if she had left work, and he said she left at 3 with you to do baby stuff. So I just assumed you girls went shopping or something, and that she'd stayed over at your place. Now imagine my surprise when I get up this morning and neither of you are up in the kitchen getting ready for work!"

"Angela! Angela calm down," Maura successfully interrupted Angela's rant, "Jane is fine, I am fine. We ended up going on a bit of an impromptu trip. It's a uhhhh yoga retreat in Maine," she made up as she went, figuring that they still had time to do some yoga while they were here so it wouldn't be an outright lie. "I'm sorry we didn't let you know when we were leaving," she said feeling guilty she hadn't thought to call Angela last night when they first realized they would be making a visit to Storybrooke.

"Oh that's lovely!" Angela shouted across the line as overly enthusiastic about Jane's life as ever, "I wish I could have gone. I love yoga. You and Jane will have to tell me all about it and teach me everything you learn once you get back" she exclaimed in excitement.

"Yeah, sure thing. Well it was nice to talk to you Angela, but we had a really late night of driving so honestly I'd kind of like to get a little more sleep before we head off to the first day of the uhhh retreat."

"Oh, alright then, don't let me keep you!" came Angela's reply. "Bye Maura! Tell Jane I said good morning."

"Alright, I will. Good bye Angela." Maura ended the call and then flopped back into her pillow heaving a sigh of relief. She really hated lying, and the fact that it was over the phone and not in person only helped a little. She could already feel hives forming on her chest, and could only hope that with a little extra rest, they wouldn't make their way up her neck where they would be visible. Meanwhile, she glanced around the room taking inventory of her surroundings. She wondered where Jane had run off too, and decided to get up and find her. That's when she finally registered the faint sound of retching coming from the bathroom. _Oh lovely,_ she thought, _morning sickness…_ So instead of going back to sleep as she had told Angela she would, she dragged herself out of bed and made her way over to the bathroom to check on her friend.

"Hey Jane, you ok in there?" she called through the closed door.

"Yeah, just a minute!" Jane called back. Maura could now hear what sounded like Jane brushing her teeth through the door.

* * *

"How are you feeling?" Maura asked when Jane finally let herself out of the bathroom. She reached over to gently pat Jane on the arm in an attempt to comfort her.

"I've been better," Jane replied darkly, though she smiled at the gesture. "God I hate morning sickness," she groaned.

"Well, lucky for you, most women only suffer through it at the beginning of their pregnancy, so you should be out of the woods as far as that is concerned soon enough."

"Yeah, but by then I'll be as big as a house and be super uncomfortable for a whole host of other reasons," Jane whined.

"Yes well, I suppose that is what happens when you're pregnant. Although I wouldn't really know as I've never experienced it first hand," Maura laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

"Right, so what is our plan for today?" Jane asked, ready to get down to business.

"Well really, I think we should sleep a little longer. It was a late night, and you are pregnant so we need to make sure you're getting enough rest. I think as long as we get up by nine we'll have plenty of time to explore the town today."

"All right fiiinnnne," Jane groaned. She hated when people used her being pregnant as an excuse for her to do something. She wasn't that far along yet, and so other than the morning sickness, she really didn't feel any different than normal.

"Good," replied Maura cheerfully recognizing her victory. "I am just going to call Lieutenant Korsak and let him know that we are taking a bit of a vacation. I'm sure he'll be fine with it, seeing as neither of us ever takes time off."

"Oh right, good point. I'm guessing you successfully dealt with my mother than?"

"Yes, I told Angela we were at a yoga retreat in Maine," Maura chuckled darkly.

"Really?" Jane responded impressed, "and I don't even see any hives," she grinned.

"Oh haha," Maura deadpanned, "and the hives are there. Believe me."

"Yeah yeah ok, I'm sorry. And thank you for taking care of that. Now let's try to get a couple more hours of sleep before we have to go illegally stalk women some more," Jane said sarcastically as she crawled back into the bed.

* * *

By 10:00 am Jane was feeling much better. She had a couple extra hours of sleep, and she and Maura were now sitting peacefully in a booth at Granny's Diner sipping at their coffee and enjoying a delicious breakfast. Jane noticed they were receiving some fairly odd stares from the restaurant's other patrons, and the waitress had seemed to regard them with a bit more curiosity than necessary, but she had brushed it off to just be because they were outsiders in a small town where everybody knew everybody.

The bells on the door jangled, and she watched as their brunette suspect, Regina, swept into the diner, immediately gaining the attention of the entire room. A strange atmosphere was created when the brunette swept in, it was obvious that she easily held command of the room, but there was something else lurking in the way the citizens of Storybrooke regarded her. They certainly knew who she was, as she was their mayor, but that wasn't it. It was almost as if some of them feared her. Tucking that thought to the back of her mind for further examination, Jane watched as Regina, dressed perfectly in a pinstriped skirt, tight white blouse, and trench coat, walked purposefully up to a couple sitting at the bar drinking hot chocolate.

"Idiots!" she addressed them loudly. Jane noticed that the entire diner still seemed to be intent on watching how this scene would play out, not seeming to care if they were caught staring. It almost seemed like Regina and the couple at the bar were used to being stared at as none of them reacted to the odd treatment by the rest of the patrons.

"Regina," the man sighed as he stood up from his seat, "can you _please _stop calling us that? It kind of undermines my authority."

"Oh really? Does it?" she sassed back in a clipped tone. "You know how about I stop calling you an idiot when you stop acting like one. As for your authority, I think you'll find that no matter where we are _I_ have authority over you. You see here in Storybrooke, I am mayor, and you are merely the Sheriff's Deputy. In the Enchanted Forest, well I supposed we were a bit more equal, but I was still the Queen rightfully. You and Snow would not have inherited the kingdom until I died had you not committed treason and tried to over throw me, so I stand by my initial greeting of Idiot."

The pixy haired brunette woman who had been sitting next to the "idiot" had now stood up to speak to Regina as well, although she had a calm, somewhat resigned expression on her face, unlike the man who seemed to just be getting angry. From what Jane could tell of her expression, it seemed as though this argument was not a new one. Again she took inventory of the strange fairy tale references wondering if the Enchanted Forest was code for something as well. Maybe their organization? Had there really been a coup? It was strange, because while they were definitely having an argument, they still seemed to be civil. Well sort of, at least it didn't seem like either were going to up and kill anyone.

"Regina, get to the point," the pixy haired woman was saying, although sounding more annoyed than combative.

"Right, where are we on the hit and run investigation?" Regina asked, suddenly all business. It was the strangest dynamic shift Jane had ever seen. Suddenly all the hostility was gone, and the three were exchanging knowing looks, and maybe even looks of comfort. The slightly younger brunette, who Jane had yet to hear named, was now rubbing Regina's arm supportively, smiling at her even, and Regina, though looking slightly uncomfortable with the show of affection, did not pull away.

"Well honestly we haven't gotten very far," the man replied, putting his hands up in surrender as he received a glare from Regina. "We have a vehicle description from Henry, and I ran it through our police database. So far I have found five possible registered vehicles that match the description. I'm about to head out to interrogate all the owners. Hopefully one of them will be our guy. It should be pretty easy to tell. Anything that hit the Bug with the force to do that much damage had to have come out with some damage of its own."

"Thank you David," Regina finally smiled, "That sounds like progress to me. Are you going to take Emma with you when you do interviews?"

"Do you think that's wise?" the man, who Jane now knew to be David, asked. "What was her attitude about this like? I mean, you probably know better than I do. Do you think she can be objective about his, or will her emotional connection to the case get in the way?"

"You make a good point," the mayor nodded, "Take Mary Margaret, or actually take Miss Lucas. I know she at least has some sense, I wouldn't trust you two idiots to handle anything this important on your own."

"Seriously Regina, can you please lay off the name calling for two seconds?" Mary Margaret huffed in frustration, "I know why you're mad at us today, but really, stop acting like such a child."

"_Me_ act like a child?" Regina gasped in mock shock, "alright fine. I will stop calling you idiots to your face. For today. And that by no means means I will not call you idiots behind your back," her tone is now playful, and Jane is once more utterly confused by the dynamic between these three.

"Yes Regina, I have no doubt you will. I'm sure you've been calling us idiots behind our backs everyday for the past three decades," Mary Margaret laughed.

"Oh probably longer for you dear," Regina quipped in reply. "Miss Lucas!" she called out, hailing the young brunette waitress, who had served Jane and Maura their breakfasts, over the group standing by the bar.

"Yes Madam Mayor?" the waitress addressed her politely.

"You're on Deputy duty today with David. Tell Granny that if she needs extra help at the diner I am sure Ashley or even Grace would be willing to come in. If worse comes to worse just put Snow here in charge." She smirked at the look of annoyance on Mary Margaret's face at that comment.

"Sure thing!" the waitress replied, obviously trying not to laugh. "Oh by the way, you guys should probably put out a Magic Alert. There are some out of towners staying at the Bed & Breakfast."

"WHAT?" Regina balked.

"Umm yeah, they just checked in last night. They're eating breakfast right in that booth over there, so we probably want to keep any magic, or talk of magic on the down low."

"What's going on?" the blonde Sheriff had just entered the diner, and was now joining in on the conversation.

"Ruby and David are going out to interview suspects, and the town is being put on Magic Alert because of out of towners," Mary Margaret filled her in quickly, not really understanding why Regina reacted so strongly. They had had out of towners before and had a good system to deal with it, but now both Regina and Emma were staring over at the booth where Jane and Maura sat with a look of absolute panic horror on their faces. Jane and Regina locked eyes, and Regina glared at her.

"This cannot be happening right now," she gritted out quietly, so Jane had to strain her ears to hear it.

"Uhhhh do you guys know them?" Ruby asked in bewilderment.

"Unfortunately it seems they are stalking us," Regina clipped, never breaking her staring contest with Jane. "The brunette at least. She's a detective in Boston, started asking a lot of questions. She seems very persistent if she managed to follow us all the way here. I'm not sure who the woman with her is though."

"Do you want me to take care of it?" Mary Margaret asked in concern.

"No, Emma and I will handle this. Can you go back and check on Henry though? I told him I'd only be gone for half an hour, and I suspect it may be longer now."

"Yes, I can do that. Should I tell him what's going on?" the pixy haired woman inquired.

"I suppose so, we all know how he hates being left out of the loop. Tell him about our dear detective here too. Maybe he will have some ideas of how to deal with this. Honestly if she followed us here after I explicitly told her to leave us alone, I don't think we will be able to convince her to leave. I think we should proceed as normal, take off the Magic Alert, let them investigate whatever they are investigating. Eventually they will either find what they want and confront us, at which point we will modify their memories and send them on their way, or they will think they have gone insane in which case we will still modify their memories and send them back to Boston." She said this with a smirk on her face that was almost maniacal. With that she finally turned away from Jane to face the rest of the group, and Jane felt herself let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. _What the hell have we walked into? Seriously!_

* * *

**A/N: **Phew! That was a long chapter. Stay tuned, more action to come!


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